


Soul To Keep

by AnOddSock



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Brotherly Bonding, Character Development, Creature Castiel, Description of Magical Torture, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, Human Sacrifice, Light Angst, M/M, Magic, Mild Language, Raised Apart, Soul Bond, Soul-Searching, Swearing, held against their will, tfwbigbang2018, tragic backstory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 05:56:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 34,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16112258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnOddSock/pseuds/AnOddSock
Summary: Dean's life has been tough and fierce, and now it seems it will also be short, as he heads towards a fate he can't escape.Picked to be the sacrifice by the place he called home, he is to be given over to the horror in the mountains.As he struggles to come to terms with his impending demise, Dean discovers everything he’s ever known is a lie. Thrust into the unknown, Dean discovers his past and forges new connections that might turn out to be pivotal in changing the future, not just for himself but for the people he learns to love.





	1. Dean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my entry for the Team Free Will Big Bang 2018! It's been a real labour of love that I've spent a lot of months working on, if you read it I hope you enjoy it as much as I've enjoyed writing it. It's a fantasy tale, but with a big focus on the characters and their relationships with each other. I've tried to draw some parallels with canon along the way, see if you can spot any of them!
> 
> I was paired with the wonderful [Correlia-be](http://correlia-be.tumblr.com/) who created some awesome artwork that really compliments my story and I had a lot of fun working alongside and trading ideas, go check out her tumblr! [Here's a link to the art she did](http://correlia-be.tumblr.com/post/178536113665/deans-life-has-been-tough-and-fierce-and-now-it)
> 
>  
> 
> Big thanks to my beta [Coconutice22](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coconutice22) who was an enormous help and encouragement. Any mistakes left are purely of my own making!

Dean soaked in the final moments of sun as the rays sank below the mountains. His last sunset.

He'd been watching the mountains’ shadow grow longer and longer throughout the entire afternoon and into the evening. It swallowed him up while he sat in the dusk and waited.

He was restless. Energy pulsed through him in jolts. He jiggled his chained leg and tapped out rhythms on the stone below him.

He didn't want to die.

He didn't want to be the sacrifice. Especially given that he'd really done nothing wrong.

He had heard that sometimes people went willingly into the arms of the deity from the mountain, glad to be given the opportunity to serve their people – or maybe just to leave this place – but Dean certainly wasn't one of them.

“Any chance of a drink?” he asked the guards standing steadfast beside him.

One of them reached across and handed over a copper jug filled with water. Dean held out his hand for it and took a few sips.

“What about a proper drink? You know, nice bit of beer, a big mug from Ellen’s tavern… the good stuff,” he asked as he handed back the water jug. “Last request for a dying man?”

The guard only looked at him with narrowed eyes for a moment before turning back to his post. Right, of course not. He wasn’t allowed anything that wasn’t given to him as part of someone’s penance.

The townsfolk had spent all of the last two days bringing him bites of bread and small fruit, anyone who felt they needed to atone brought a gift for the sacrifice. Dean had had to take it all and people brought whatever they could spare.

Some gave him flower petals to crush between his fingers and rub the essence across his palms, or anointed him with oil. Today, two had even spilled their own blood and wiped it across his upper arms.

So not only was he sweaty, hungry, angry and terrified. He smelt awful. A weird combination of foods and oils, coating every inch of exposed skin: bare chest, face, arms, nothing had been off limits.

Every time someone entered the square Dean groaned inwardly, especially if they carried small items and looked furtively around. He’d seen innumerable people, some he knew, some he didn’t.

The sun was almost fully set. The mayor, Alistair, his personal guards, and two priests came around the corner into the square. Dean stiffened. It was here, it was time.

A young woman appeared across the other side of the square and hurried over to Dean. The guards gave her a begrudging nod, waved her past to urge her to hurry up. She stood before Dean and held out her cupped hand; there was a small amount of salt cradled in her palm.

She held it out to him and he swallowed, sighed, and leaned forward. He licked the salt off her palm and grimaced at the strong, sharp taste. So, the last thing he would get to eat, to savour, was salt. The back of his throat burned as he swallowed down rising bile at the thought.

She turned and ran and Dean watched her go with envy, the weight of the chain around his ankle heavy and hot.

The small procession of guards and important townsfolk stood before Dean while the mayor gave him an appraising look. “Any trouble?” he asked the stationed guards.

“No sir, nothing to report.”

“Good.” He turned to Dean. “You have made peace with your fate, then?”

Dean glared at him, oh how he hated them all, and nodded tersely.

Dean hadn’t made peace with anything. He was furious and indignant. And totally at their mercy.

A bar fight, one stupid bar fight with the wrong person and this was how _fate_ had played out. He’d only been defending some pretty young men and women from the advances of leering, snivelling older patrons, when someone had grabbed him by the scruff of the neck, dragged him into the street and he’d fought off his attacker.

Only when the melee ended did Dean notice who he’d been fighting. Mark, one of the idiots brothers of Samuel Campbell, the local asshole politician. Dean had beaten him off easily, a few careful throws of his fist and he’d gone down, sprawled in the dirt. He ranted and raved at Dean about how he would pay, how he’d get his own back for the humiliation Dean had caused him, how he’d put Dean in his place.

And pay Dean would – with his life.

As the priests stepped forward and read long winded passages from old sacred texts and poured blessed water over Dean’s head, Dean wondered how many other sacrifices over the years had really deserved it. Or if they’d been like him, wrong place, wrong time, pissed off the wrong person.

The system was supposed to be a good one. Someone who’d done something unspeakably wrong – like being unnecessarily violent, threatening and dangerous, as Dean was accused of – would be the one to give their life. An offering of penance and peace to the Demi-god who resided in the mountain range.

To keep their favour and earn their respect. To keep the town blessed for another year.

But how many people, like Dean, had been thrown at its mercy in a cruel miscarriage of justice? Dean had always hated the idea anyway, had never in his twenty-seven years of life offered his own penance to be weighed along with the sacrifice. Any wrong he did was his alone, he thought, he wouldn’t ask someone else to pay for it.

The small ritual was done and Dean found his vision narrowing down to a point. There was sweat on the brow of the priest in front of him. Dean watched it trickle down the side of his face before he wiped it away with a flick of his hand.

Dean couldn’t help but feel like the bead of sweat was him, and his life was rolling rapidly towards its end.

He refused to panic, but everything felt a little numb, so perhaps he was more anxiety ridden than he cared to admit. He thought distantly of trying to fight his way out again, fingered lightly over the bruises on his stomach that he accrued on the night they dragged him from his home. If they gave him an out, he would take it. They had subdued him two nights ago with fists, and the promise of more pain if he didn’t quieten down. He’d gone pliant in their arms at that, although refused to be pleasant and ran his mouth furiously as they pulled him through the streets to the wardens jail cell. All it had got him was a night with his hands chained behind his back while he tried to sleep on the narrow cot.

But what more could they do to him now? They were already leading him to his death, what was a moment of pain compared to that?

“...and may this sacrifice bring us a new year of prosperity, good harvests, and kind neighbours,” Alistair finished speaking in his loud, nasally voice.

Dean blinked. “Is that it?” he asked.

The mayor looked down at him and where he sat, and curled his lips in a cruel smile.  
“Yes, that’s it. What were you hoping for, a fanfare, perhaps a parade?”

Dean suppressed a snarl. “Well you are about to kill me, I thought maybe there’d be a little more celebration to the proceedings. Especially as you all seem so glad to be getting rid of me.” He looked at each present member in turn as he said it. Most of them couldn’t meet his eyes.

“Get him up,” Alistair said without flatly, watching in satisfaction as two guards yanked Dean to his feet and a third cuffed his hands roughly behind his back.

Dean’s last sliver of hope trickled away as the locks clicked shut. There wouldn’t be chance to fight.

His ankle was unclipped from the chain set into the square slab of rock and a sombre progression began as they marched him out of town.

Dean dug his heels in and snarled as they pushed him along. The guard on his right leaned in, grabbed Dean by the throat and asked in a low voice if he’d rather be hogtied and carried through the streets.

Dean growled out a no, forced past the hand bruising his neck, and let himself be guided down the road. People congregated at the town gate, watching with guilty expressions as Dean was dragged past them. The mayor turned at the gate and began to speak. Dean tuned him out as his eyes followed the road, and then the path that left the track and ran through the flood fields to the river. Across the ford, and further to the forest edge at the foot of the mountains.

He shuddered a little, seeing his last journey laid before him, but somehow his fear dissipated. It was calm out here, the clear breeze and the smell of wet ground. The mountain loomed over them but it looked peaceful, not like the home of something that would steal his life.

Dean held his head high. They wouldn’t see him quake, he didn’t even feel like he needed to.

The procession that had started in the square were the only ones permitted to accompany Dean to the site where the sacrifices were left. No one spoke and the night was quiet, steadily turning darker, with just the shushing sound of the wind through the grass.

Dean was barefoot and stumbled over the uneven ground as stones cut into his feet.  
“Hey,” he said, and found that the quiet had crept into his own voice too, “let up a minute, I can’t see where I’m walking here.” The guards just tightened their grip and pulled him along.

The walk took longer than Dean expected, stars were popping into view in the cloudless sky, and good that it was cloudless so that light from the rising moon lit their way. Dean’s shoulders began to ache with the way his arms were fastened behind him, and his feet hurt as he trod on small rocks and scuffed in the dirt.

Crossing the ford was wonderful. Soft flowing water, cool around his ankles, and mud between his toes. Dean liked it, the feel of something other than hot sun, careless hands, and unforgiving metal; something else he got to experience that they couldn’t take from him.

He found himself grinning, and breathing a little easier, as they traipsed across the flood field.

Around thirty paces from the forest edge the march came to a halt. The shadows from the trees deepened the darkness and neither his guards, or the priests, stepped into it. Dean watched the mayor take two further steps forward and survey their surroundings before nodding and rejoining the group.

“We wait,” were the only words he spoke. The guards roughly shoved Dean to the front of the small crowd, he stumbled and they took the opportunity to push him to his knees.

Dean felt the jarring through his bones as he fell to the ground and clenched his jaw. He huffed a breath through his nose, turned to glare at his captors and swallowed the insults he wanted to throw at them – they would fall on deaf ears anyway.

The wait felt almost as long as the walk had been, and Dean wondered if this is how it always was, if there was always waiting or if something unprecedented had happened. Would he get a last minute reprieve? No one seemed agitated or nervous, and though a small part of him wanted to believe that something had changed and this wasn’t going to happen, their calmness stole that hope away before it even properly formed.

He began to count his breaths and reached forty six before anything happened.

A twig snap. A footfall. A lengthening shadow.

A figure emerged out of the tree line walking steadily toward them.

The hands on his shoulders disappeared and Dean turned to see the others backing away. The guards hurried, the politicians and priests walked slowly but steadily backwards.

“I hope all this comes back to haunt you one day,” Dean hissed at them. “I hope someone gets to see you burn for it.”

The mayor flashed a grin at him, teeth suddenly white and stark in the gloom.

“I doubt that will come to pass Winchester, but if it comforts you as you go to your grave, indulge your fantasy all you like. Campbell’s brother sends his regrets, by the way, not to see you off.”

And there it was, as good as an admission of the injustice being carried out here. Dean was stunned, and knelt in the dirt wondering distantly why he wasn’t lunging to his feet and railing against the perpetrators. Or why he wasn’t attempting to flee. But he was shocked into inaction, he’d never thought any of them would say it.

A shadow fell across him and Dean looked up at the figure who had been striding towards them.

He was here.

Swathed in shadows, but tall, elegant and slow in movement.

Dean's thoughts ground to a halt. The figure, the _man_ , reached him and Dean took half a halting shuffle backwards.

A hand was placed gently on Dean's shoulder and Dean flinched.

“Be still, all is well.” His voice was gravely, and quiet, Dean didn't think the others would have heard it.

Dean swallowed. “Will it hurt?”

The man just tilted his head at Dean and reached out a hand to his forehead.

So this was it, it would end here? Dean had thought there'd be more to it, some ceremony or ritual.

“Make it quick,” he whispered.

Fingertips brushed his skin and something moved in Dean's mind, and through his body. Warmth. Followed by a zinging spurt of energy.

“All is well,” repeated the man above him.

All Dean’s aches, every bruise and twisted muscle, the scrapes on the soles of his feet, all disappeared. He was rejuvenated. Felt more pain-free than he had in days.

_Why?_

Dean stared blankly at the face above him. Too clouded in darkness to make out the features, except a dark head of hair and eyes that caught the sparkle of starlight and twinkled down at him too.

The being nodded, head and eyes raised to look past Dean. He turned and saw a stiff nod back from Alistair and small bows from the priests.

“I accept this man as an offering. Thank you,” came the deep toned voice, it rumbled from his chest and Dean wondered if that voice was what the voice of the mountain would sound like.

Dean sunk lower to the ground at that, breath getting a little shorter. Death seeming imminently closer.

“Make it quick.” He hurled the words out, not caring how they sounded.

An arm descended; it moved in an arc towards him and Dean saw it coming as if time had slowed. He scrunched his face up, eyes shut tight, as the hand reached him.

He was pulled to his feet with what felt like a sudden loss of gravity. And he was up on his toes, following the hand that guided him, before his eyes flew open.

The figure held his arm firmly and walked him across the last of the flood field, the  
trees growing closer step by step as Dean tried to understand what was happening.

“You aren’t...” he began, and stopped. “You’re not going to kill me here?”

The being beside him faltered slightly, barely noticeable, Dean only felt the briefest tremor through the hand on his bicep.

“All is well, keep walking. Don’t look back.”

Dean couldn’t help but look back after that, his eyes catching the sight of the receding procession before his own descent into the trees cut them from view.

“Come, there is a path.”

They moved slowly, much slower than the guards had walked him out here. It gave Dean time to find his footing on the uneven ground. After they’d walked a couple of dozen paces into the tree line the man – he really looked and felt like a man, breathing and moving like one – stopped and guided Dean to sit on a low hanging branch.

“Wait just a moment, I have something here to help you.”

Dean began to scramble away. “I’m not taking anything from you, I don’t want anything from you, you sick bastard stop toying with me! Get this over already.”

A quick hand on his knee made him still, and the fear he thought he’d left behind jolted through him. He didn’t know what this thing was capable of, really, and he wasn’t looking forward to finding out.

“Please wait, there will be time to explain later. For now, I have something here to help you.”

Dean wondered if he knew that he’d repeated the same words over, if it was supposed to be calming somehow. He wasn’t a child, he didn’t need mollycoddling. But to a being this old, if the stories of his existence were true, maybe all people seemed young.

Dean startled at another touch to his leg; he couldn’t see at all now. Night truly had fallen and the forest canopy stole away the moonlight.

He was blind. He was still shackled. He sighed resignedly at the situation and waited.

Something soft slipped across the skin of his foot. A hand pushed it until his sole rested against tough leather. A shoe. A shoe?

The demi-god was giving him shoes. Dean laughed as one was placed on his other foot and he was lifted back to his feet.

He doubled over with it, as wave after wave broke out of him in shaking gasps.

“Are you alright?”

“You're clothing me! I can’t...” he broke down into a second burst of laughter. “It seems so… pointless.”

There was an amused sound from the direction of the man in front of him.

“I thought you might appreciate being able to walk with less discomfort.”

“Well, yeah,” Dean replied as he recovered, “but I didn’t think you’d care. You’re about to eat me, or whatever it is you do, who cares about sore feet in the face of that?”

The was a hum of disapproval from the dark shape of shadows above him, before he was reoriented gently by a quick hand on his shoulder, facing in the direction they’d been heading before.

“We can walk faster, now your feet are protected.”

“I can’t see fucking a thing,” Dean growled, “but sure, let’s walk faster.”

“I can guide you, will you trust me?”

“It’s not like I have a choice is it? I can’t exactly fight my way out with my arms chained like this,” Dean answered, feeling the aches in his shoulders returning more by the minute.

“Well, the faster we move, the sooner I can get you out of them.”

Dean was going to spit back a retort about shoving this cruel illusion of kindness up his ass, but was pulled along at almost jogging speed and all thought went into keeping his feet underneath him.

The creature didn’t lead him wrong though, no branches underfoot or twists in the path. Before long they were heading up a steep incline as they reached the foot of the mountain.

Dean was glad he was in such good shape, he wasn’t sure he’d keep up otherwise. It was unsettling, being led through the darkness, completely blind to where they were going and completely helpless to get away (if the creatures firm hand on his shoulder was any indication of its strength and power). It gave Dean’s mind time to wander, he chewed over the situation and struggled to find reasonable answers as to why the figure he’d been brought to as a human chew toy had done nothing to harm him – had even gone out of his way to _help_ him.

The path turned from packed earth to rock, and moonlight filtered down through the now thinning tree canopy. Dean could make out his own feet and watch for where to put them. He didn’t look up until he saw a dark entrance opening in a wall of rock before them.

And then he stopped. Planted his feet hard. He wasn’t going to walk willingly into this things lair.

“Dean?”

Dean startled at the familiarity.

“What, how the fuck do you know my name?” he spat.

“I saw it, in your mind, when I healed you,” the creature said simply.

“I… you – you read my mind?” Dean cringed away, sneering. “What kind of sick joke is that? I can’t keep anything private before my death?”

“I’m not going to kill you.” The being sounded mildly offended, but mostly bored. Like Dean was some insignificant insect that had to be dealt with.

Only, the longer Dean looked at him in the moonlight, the more he saw how very human he appeared. Not small by any means, but ever so slightly shorter than Dean. Plain clothes, and a mess of dark hair. When he tilted his head the moonlight caught his eyes and Dean thought he saw a shock of bright blue in them.

“Well, then maybe I’ll kill you,” Dean said, although there was no venom in his voice. He’d never been one for needless violence, never wanted to – had so far never had to – take a life. But if it meant his own survival, he was sure he could do it.

“You will have no need to, if you would just let me show you, lead you, a while longer. Then you’ll see.”

“Oh really?” Dean scoffed, and ran at him, aimed to knock him sideways with his shoulder and plant a kick at his knee. He ran, thinking he’d moved suddenly enough to catch the thing off guard. But found himself swung around by an arm, until he was completely off balance.

A hand pinned him at the neck, half bent over his own knees, and the other held the chain between his wrists. The hold was strong, more than Dean expected after all the gentle touches, stronger than any man he’d met.

“Do you have so little faith?” the creature asked him, before forcing him into the dark.


	2. Dean

Dean stumbled along with the creature at his back. He was growing weary and his legs ached fiercely. The tunnel went on before him in a seemingly endless expanse of black, rising and falling at intervals, but steadily climbing upwards into the heart of the mountain.

The figure had kept up its firm hold on the chains binding Dean’s wrists but had picked up a long-handled torch to light their way. The light that flickered from it only illuminated a few paces ahead and Dean grew tired of trying to anticipate where they were going or what he would see when they got there.

A stitch began in Dean’s side and he dragged air into his lungs past the pain. Eventually he had to pause, weakened from the sharp pain, and lean against the tunnel wall.

And bright blue–white light glowed through the the darkness as warmth buzzed at the base of Dean’s neck. For the second time that night he felt all his pain fizzle away into nothing.

He gulped air and hung his head. None of this made sense. The unfairness of the situation gnawed at him, he felt his fuse shortening as fury worked its way to the surface.

He turned abruptly, as far as the chains allowed, and faced his captor.

“Why do you keep doing that? What do you possibly have to gain from helping me?”

The man looked shocked, almost hurt, and then slumped slightly.

“I gain nothing, Dean. I just want to ease your pain.”

“Letting me go would be the best way to do that. I guess that’s too much to ask though right, you want your fucking sacrifice.”

“You haven’t heard the stories?”

“Oh, I’ve heard the stories,” Dean replied tersely, and recited:

“Beware, be good, for if you should  
There’s nothing here to fear  
Be bold, or bad, and then you have  
A sacrifice to hear

Best to rest, with happiness  
So nothing bad befalls  
Don’t speak too loud or rough and proud  
Or death is all that calls.”

He turned when he finished and found the being staring at him with wide eyes.

“You can’t grow up here and not know about you.” Dean added with a shrug.

“People… that is a tale they tell their children? A warning rhyme, about me? I never knew…”

“Sorry to break it to you,” Dean said, not unkindly. “Those kind of things are what we grow up knowing.”

“There’s more than one myth like that?”

“Yes.” Dean watched the man next to him take this on board, and then push past the emotion it had dragged out of him to carry on their conversation.

“No one ever told you other stories, the other tales? You never had anyone teach you…” he trailed off. “You never had anyone to teach you.” It wasn’t a question and Dean struggled to parse out his meaning.

“I learned enough to get by, thanks, asshole.”

Dean realised with a snap that the hand holding onto his chained hands was gone. He took a step backwards out of the creature’s reach.

“You got a name?” he asked “Wouldn’t mind knowing the name of the man who’s gonna put me in the ground.”

“Castiel,” came the reply. “And I’m not a man.”

They walked on in silence after Castiel placed a hand on Dean’s arm ushering him forwards. Dean walked with a heavy tread, his pain was gone but the weariness was only growing.

“You said something about other stories?” Dean said, looking for a distraction from the monotony of walking, the swirl of thinking.

“Would you like to hear them?”

“Don’t have much else going on right now.”

“Let’s start with what you do know,” Castiel replied. “You know I take sacrifices, obviously. You know the town selects someone to pay penance, although I assume you know by now that it is rarely decided fairly.”

“Right, because a sacrifice can ever be fair.”

“You know those people often have nowhere else to run to, no one to turn to?”

“I guess, though it’s not like we get advanced warning that this is about to happen. I didn’t get chance to run, and I could’ve.”

“You had somewhere to go?”

“I knew someone, she left, with her son. I told her to forget me, let her son grow up somewhere better, but I could’ve followed her.”

“Someone else would’ve taken your place.” It was said gently but Dean felt the sting of it, the burden of wondering if he could have left someone else in his shoes if he’d known to flee.

“I also know you sometimes reject the sacrifice. Happened a couple of years ago,” Dean said, changing the subject.

“Yes, Claire. She didn’t…. I couldn’t take her, she needed to go back to her family. Her mother.”

“And I don’t need to go back to my life?” Dean demanded.

“They would have killed you. I saw it, when I looked into your mind. There was no way they would let you walk after the perceived slight you made against the Campbells.”

Dean stopped in his tracks. “You saw all that, from one touch? What they did, what I didn’t do?”

Castiel nodded sadly.

“So, what, it's better if you kill me instead of them?”

“I am not going to kill you!”

“Then what are you going to do? Because honestly, _Cas,_ I can’t think of anything good that a man-shaped being with some serious mojo would do with a chained prisoner year after year.”

“I set them free,” Cas answered simply. “I set them all free.”

Dean blinked in the torchlight and tried to take that in. He couldn’t wrap his mind around it.

“Why?” he whispered, not meaning to speak quietly.

“I don’t want to kill anyone, surely _you_ understand that.” Dean felt like there was a point in there about himself, what Castiel knew about him, that he didn’t feel equipped to address right then.

“No but, why, why take anyone in the first place? Why give them what they want? You give them power Cas, I’ve seen it. They think they own all of us, holding it over our heads.”

“Let’s talk while we walk, we’re almost at a place we can stop for the night.”

Dean let himself be turned around and began the weary walk upwards.

“It started millennia ago, perhaps. Humans count time passing in different ways to my kind. I helped people, your ancestors. Gave them things they needed. Offered assistance where I could.”

Dean realised Cas was walking side by side with him now; less like a prisoner and a warden, more like equals.

“Somewhere along the way, they began to think they had to give me something in return. I turned down everything I could, I had no need for crops or livestock. But generations passed and myths grow and shift over time.” He sighed, a hiss of feeling that blew the flickering torchlight to dance across the walls.

“I was gone for a time, and when I returned… people thought I was displeased. That I continued to be displeased every time I refused a gift, as though it were unworthy. One day a young man was brought to me as payment. I tried to take him back, but he begged, he _pleaded_ for his life. They would have murdered him upon his return for stealing to feed his siblings.”

Dean watched Cas’s face and saw the sadness move across it, and then change into something lighter.

“I gave him a new life, across the mountains. And so it began. I looked at each person brought to me, and if I could save them I would. If I could send away someone who wanted to bring harm to another I made them leave. And if, like the girl from two harvests ago, I could send someone back knowing that they would be left in peace I did.”

Dean was stunned, and still a little angry after everything he’d been put through. He didn’t dare believe the truth he was being told, in case it was snatched away again.

“How do you know? Who do you decide is worthy of being saved?”

“I told you that I looked into your mind.” Castiel was choosing his words carefully Dean could tell, but he didn’t comment on it, “I see you, who you are, what you’ve done. Or what you haven’t. I get fleeting images of the way the people in power view that person, threat or foe. And I make a judgement, as best I can.”

Dean studied his face as he talked, as they climbed towards whatever place Castiel was taking him. He seemed sincere. He looked peaceful, and old somewhere around the eyes.

Castiel stopped walking abruptly. “Here we are.”

Dean turned in half a circle before he spotted the opening in the side of the tunnel leading into a dark chamber.

“I… where are we?”

“Somewhere to rest for the remainder of the night, come.” Dean planted his feet and tensed. As much as he wanted to believe Castiel, he was still chained and half naked and he hated how vulnerable he felt. His nerves reappeared and they hadn’t gotten any smaller.

“Dean,” Cas said in his low, calm voice, “there is nothing bad in here, a bed for you, a lock pick to open your restraints. Some food, spare clothing. Please, let me help you.”

“Alright, but if you try and chain me to an alter I’m going to kick you in the nuts.” A joke, he hoped he’d said it light heartedly, but the undercurrent of his fear and his threat were real enough.

Castiel quirked half a smile at him and nodded, “I’d expect nothing less.”

Castiel led Dean into the small chamber, and lit a metal brazier filled with logs. As they burned light filtered through the room and Dean’s eyes adjusted to see a sparsely furnished space. A narrow bed, and a chair, a counter with dried foods and a chopping board and knife.

Dean eyed it all warily, weighing his options. Castiel rooted through a small chest and appeared in front of him with two long metal lock picks in hand.

Dean turned and offered his bound hands.

“You’ve done this before I guess?”

“Many times.” Castiel made short work of the lock and the cuff on Dean’s left wrist opened with a soft snick.

His arms were free.

Dean was free.

He wasted not even a breath before pulling away from Castiel, darted to the right and picked up the knife.

Dean readied himself into a firm stance and waited for Castiel to make a move.

“You’re going to let me leave, right now.”

“Why, Dean, I have a plan, a place to take you to safety!”

“Yes, of course, and why wouldn’t I listen to you? You’ve only been leading me chained into the middle of a mountain for hours. You’ve only been taking sacrifices for more years than I could trace my family tree back. But sure, I’ll trust you.”

“I wasn’t lying about all that. I’m not who you have been raised to believe I am.”

“It doesn’t matter,”

“I think it does.”

“No it doesn’t. I don’t care if you are what you say you are or if you really are a killer, it doesn’t make a difference. It _can’t_ make a difference! I have to watch my own back, and I’ve got a chance to leave right here and I’m taking it.”

“Where will you go?” Castiel asked.

“I don’t know, back to town, or at least back to the crossroads and then I’ll leave. Get as far away from here as I can.”

“They’ll kill you if they catch you. It’s not safe, wait with me until morning, let me show you–”

Dean didn’t wait, he lunged and threw his weight behind the knife.

Castiel caught his wrist and twisted, yanked Dean off balance and lifted the knife out of his grasp.

Dean yelled, and threw an elbow back. Cas jerked out of the way. Dean tried to make it around him and through the doorway but Cas blocked him at every turn.

A few minutes of scuffling and Castiel had him by the right arm and pulled him relentlessly towards the bed. Dean fought, hard, but the creature was surprisingly strong.

In seconds the free end of the chains was secured to the bed frame and Dean slumped across the thin mattress.

He glared at the man before him until Castiel shrugged with a small lift of his shoulders and turned toward his small stack of supplies.

“That knife wouldn’t have harmed me anyway, if that makes you feel better.”

Dean frowned, it really didn’t make him feel better.

“What, are you invincible?”

“Not quite, but there are limited things in this world that could hurt me and that isn’t one of them.”

He didn’t look pissed, he looked blank Dean realised. Like he’d hidden his reactions away and was attempting to be placating.

“Are you hurt? Do you have wounds I need to tend to?” he asked and his voice was as neutral as his face.

“Not really, some bruises, a few scrapes. Nothing serious.”

“Would you like me to look at them, heal them?”

“Not especially, thanks. I prefer not to be touched by the person holding me against my will.”

A flicker of annoyance passed across Cas’s expression. Dean considered Castiel’s question, realising that in the moments of their fight Castiel had gone out of his way to avoid hurting him. Castiel had only blocked, parried, and thrown Dean off balance.

Dean was unscathed, intact and whole. For the second time since their meeting, this being had taken measures to ensure he wasn’t hurt. First with the shoes and leading him carefully through the woods, and again by not engaging in Dean’s fight.

“If you really want to help me, why keep me chained to a bed?”

Cas sighed, and rubbed his hands over his temples.

“I made a promise, that if I ever found you in my path I wouldn’t let any harm come to you. I intend to keep that promise.”

Dean blinked. Shook his head in surprise.

“You made a _promise?_ To who?”

“Someone who I care for and admire, if you want to hear more about it now,”

“No, I’m not sure I can take any more explanations right now.”

“Alright,” Cas said wearily.

“I believe you won’t harm me, it’s not that I doubt you, not really – but your methods seem kinda crappy from over here.”

Cas smiled. “I’m not the best at talking to people I can admit, and you’re a difficult man to win trust from. Most people come around instantly, as soon as I tell them I won’t be killing them.”

“I’m not most people.”

“Clearly. But I knew that already.”

“Look, if I promise not to run, can you uncuff me? I’ve been chained up for two days.”

Cas considered him for a long moment and Dean held his gaze steadily.

“I think I can, you don’t seem one for lying, at least I believe you’re not about this.”

Dean breathed a sigh of relief. If he was truthful with himself the fight had taken his last burst of energy. He didn’t have the strength to run or fight anymore tonight, so his promise not to run was real, if more from the standpoint of being too exhausted to try.

Castiel unlocked the cuff from the bed and from his wrist and Dean marvelled at finally being free to move as he wished, he’d never thought it would happen again. He’d started the day thinking it would be his last, and here he was still alive, with a dark chasm of unknown stretching before him.

Where would Cas take him? If he really couldn’t go back, what would he do with his life away from everything he’d ever known? Was there really something better out there than what he’d seen of life so far?

It wasn’t something Dean could wrap his mind around while he was this tired. He looked down at himself and touched a finger to the sticky, dried mess of substances that coated his skin.

“Any chance of getting clean? I mean, I know it’s probably not your top priority but I’d love to get the stink of this day off me.”

Castiel gestured to a large jug and bowl in the corner of the room. “Drink some water you must be dehydrated. You can use the rest to to wash with, it’s not ideal but until tomorrow it’s the best we have.”

Dean nodded his thanks and began the process of refreshing his body, calming his thoughts with the monotony of the tasks. Castiel handed him a spare shirt afterwards and he shrugged it on gratefully, even the rough fabric feeling miraculous against his skin.

Once he was done he crawled onto the bed with aching limbs and stared at the low stone roof above his head. He imagined the weight of tonnes of rock and earth packed above him and suddenly didn’t feel relaxed at all.

“Not sure I can sleep underground like this,” he muttered.

Castiel hummed, and huffed a small laugh. “People do say that.”

Dean looked up to see him walk to a small alcove at the far corner of the chamber. It was a low outcrop of rock, but as Dean watched Castiel laid himself on the floor and pushed backwards into it.

Dean had no idea what he was doing so he followed, and copied his movements, scooted across the stone until he was laid side by side next to Cas. Dean looked at him and Castiel smiled and pointed upwards.

Dean looked up and it took his breath away. There was a long, thin opening in the rock, and a sliver of sky twinkled down at them.

“An old crack, from the settling of the mountain, I find it helps to be able to see the stars,” Castiel said quietly.

Dean nodded silently, eyes wide. It was amazing, inky blue sky filled with dots of light, the bulk of the mountain just visible at one end of hole. A breeze made its way down to them and ruffled Dean’s hair and he laughed quietly.

“You sure know how to surprise a guy.”

Dean wiggled back out of the small space and dragged the flimsy mattress across the room. He wedged it into the alcove and laid back down. He’d sleep under the stars and wake with the first light.

 

* * *

 

Dean slept well past dawn in the end. Exhaustion and the prospect of being free finally letting him sleep soundly for the first time in days. He woke slowly, mind clearing itself of dreams and the strange impression the night had left behind..

He stretched languidly, and shielded his eyes from the brightness of the sky above. It was a clear and cloudless day, just a slit of blue in the opening above him. He let himself look at it for a few moments, breathing clear and deep and bracing for the reality of life, and then shuffle-crawled his way out from under the small overhang where he’d made his bed.

Castiel was sitting quietly on the empty bed frame, eyes closed and humming a small tune. Dean cleared his throat and smiled nervously when he opened his eyes and said, “Good morning, Dean,”

“Hey, you could have woken me you know,”

“You needed the sleep and there’s nothing we need to do in any rush today.”

Dean nodded, unsure what to do now. He hadn’t shared a home with someone else in years, since he moved out of Bobby’s place. He wasn’t used to making small talk first thing in the morning, never mind the fact that Castiel was a complete stranger and not even human.

They sat in awkward silence for a few moments before Castiel directed Dean to a small pot where he could relieve himself, pointed out the dried food items he’d left out and the replenished water jug that he could refresh himself with.

Dean took it all in a little bewildered, wondering how long Castiel had been awake, but grateful. He was about to ask for privacy but Castiel beat him to it and left to wait in the tunnel until Dean was ready to go.

Dean moved slowly through stretching and waking, whilst trying to mentally prepare for the day ahead too. He didn’t know what to think, let alone what to do. He had expected to die, and on the slim chance he’d made a successful escape attempt he’d planned to flee north, to towns he knew they traded with, or maybe find work at an outlying farm and lay low for a while.

But now this ancient being was telling him he couldn’t go back, that he’d be in danger or upset some long standing agreement that Castiel had with the townsfolk, that Castiel knew better and Dean should listen to him. The idea that there was a life for him on the other side of the mountains baffled him. He didn’t know anyone there, he’d never known anyone who’d crossed the pass and come back. Thinking about it now he supposed Castiel was the reason for that, that if there were stories of people getting out of the life Dean had always known, Cas would know about them.

Learning more from Castiel was step one of his new life then, he supposed. And what was a few days really? If it turned out Castiel was wrong or he didn’t like what he found beyond the ridges, he could turn back, right? So long as no harm came to him, what did he have to lose by following along and seeing where he was being led.

There wasn’t much pleasure to be had in the food laid out for him, some hard baked crackers and some dried fruit. Dean picked at it while perched on the side of the bed but decided walking and eating would be more enjoyable. He batted away the nerves and doubts gnawing in his mind and gathered up the food items to leave.

The fact that the only things he now owned were the clothes on his back and the food in his hands was disconcerting. It felt like missing something, there should be more to his life than this. He thought about his small two room home, and the belongings he’d acquired there. Not much jumped out at him as things he’d need or miss, there was a small artists rendering of his parents in a wooden frame, and some dried flowers from the year his baby brother had been born and died – taking their mother with him. He had a pang of longing for the items, trying to envisage never seeing them again, no matter how sad a reminder they were of what he’d lost in life.

He supposed Bobby would empty out his house and handle his affairs, there was some comfort there at least. Bobby had raised him, and knew the importance of his possessions, he wouldn’t throw them away or sell them.

There was nothing else of value really, or else he’d have been richer and lived more a more plentiful life. All he'd ever wanted was to live comfortably, feel connected and sure of his place in the world. He wasn't ever sure he'd found it but he'd found the best bits of it he could. It was gone now and his only hope was that he could find it again before the loss overwhelmed him.

Shaking his head to clear the memories and concerns Dean slipped on the shoes Castiel had given him the night before and strode into the tunnel with a confidence he didn’t quite feel, but could damn well fake for as long as he needed.

 

* * *

 

 

They talked as they walked, haltingly at first, and picking up the pace as they grew more comfortable. Dean found although he was still tense around Castiel, he wasn’t on the lookout for an attack or an ambush. If he was planning anything of the sort Dean decided he was being much more subtle and careful, and an open assault didn’t seem to be on the cards.

Cas was opening up more, happily explaining the intricacies of his life. Dean learned about the home he had, a valley between two mountain peaks filled with small meadows and a mountain spring. A sun trap by the sound of it, perfect for growing things and carving a living off the land. It sounded appealing.

“So, is that where I’ll stay? With you?” Dean asked, not sure what answer to hope for.

“You can, for as long as you like, you should rest a while after your ordeal at least. But there is a settlement on the other side of the mountains, it’s a good starting point for a new life. And if for some reason you don’t like it there, they have trade routes with plenty of other places, you could go anywhere.”

“I never wanted to go anywhere,” Dean mused. “Or at least I never thought I’d get the chance to.”

“You know,” Castiel said, hesitantly, “there are plenty of people over the years who have left your town – and other nearby settlements – who have left their lives and come to me to find a way out.”

Dean looked sideways at the man beside him appraisingly.

“You said as much last night, but I’ve never heard of it happening. Wouldn’t I have known?”

“No one has ever gone from town, disappeared overnight? Left most of their belongings behind?”

Dean thought back over his life and recalled a few instances of it happening, no one he had known closely, a few acquaintances. One or two who had had troubling circumstances and seemed to have slipped away unnoticed.

He nodded, “Sure, no reason to say they came to _you_ though.”

“Well, many have,” Cas replied. “There are stories passed between people, neighbour to neighbour. It would seem like folklore, I suppose, although it is true. You have honestly never heard anything of the sort?”

Dean shook his head, “I remember some weird rumours as a child, but Bobby – Singer, he raised me – is more of a hard facts kind of guy, no point listening to fairy stories he would say.”

Castiel hummed, going quiet.

“Well...?” Dean asked.

“What?”

“Are you going to tell me or not?”

“Oh, of course,”

And so Cas began the long wandering tale of how and when people came to him. Most snuck away at night, appearing at the doorstep of the cave entrance and waiting anxiously for his return. Some waited days, hiding in the woods mere miles from their homes until he found them and ushered them to safety.

They all came bearing similar versions of the same story, that they had been told the deity who took the sacrifices was, in fact, kind-hearted – not evil, not harsh or cruel. That there was help to be found. Some expected fairies or a wizened old woman, that perhaps they thought kept the evil power of the mountain in balance and would lead them safely past it. They were mostly shocked, and still scared of him, still seeing him as wild, until they spoke to him and realised he was the hope they’d been looking for.

All of them had lives of hardship and woes, drunkard husbands or brutal families they were bruised and trodden down by and needed to flee from. Some had taken on loans from people who didn’t look kindly on their inability to repay. Some had babies clutched to their chests, or children clinging to their legs and he would gather them up and help carry the load. Cas never judged them, never looked into their hearts – if they had come for help, help is what they would get.

“If they’ve heard that there is good to be found, then I believe they are worthy of finding that goodness. The violent types, the cheaters and fighters, they never seem to hear these stories, or they do and don’t believe them.”

Which Dean had to agree was true, in all his time skirting around the edges of the seedy side of town he’d never heard more than a breath about any of this, and the times he had it had been with scorn and ridicule; how could anyone believe such nonsense, how could anyone think there was that much light in the world?

“So I bring them to my home, and then take them on to make their own new life. Like I can do with you,” Cas said, turning with a smile.

“Only I didn’t choose this,” he said low, touching on the raw edges of the pain he’d had done to him.

“No, but in a way, neither did they. You are all people backed into a corner, I just help find another way out.”

Dean scuffed a boot, swinging his arms, and turning about. Cas’s willingness to share and the sincerity in his words had lifted him, eased his fears. Wounds would heal, and he’d be damned if he would let the sons of bitches who had been happy to sacrifice him win.

“Then show me a new world!” he said buoyantly.

The tunnel had widened and brightened, daylight streaming in from somewhere ahead.

Mere minutes later Dean followed Castiel out into a sunlit, green and striking stretch of land.

Clear bright air, thinner than he was used to but clean and sweet, filled his nose and lungs. Birds sang and flitted about, and though the mountain rose up on all sides, the sun beat down from above – now almost at the highest point of the day, and warmed the air.

Dean walked forwards in a haze, broad grin in place, shielding his eyes from the sun to take it all in.

“You’re one lucky bastard to live here,” he said to Cas. “I reckon you’ve got a little paradise hidden away.”

“I’m glad to get to share it with you Dean,”

Dean nodded, and brushed fingertips over leafy tree branches and felt the shackles of his old life loosen. They weren’t gone completely, he couldn’t leave it all behind without a second thought, but he found with shock that the idea of moving on didn’t seem as unimaginable as it had. He’d make something out of this, it was all he could do, but looking at the sight before him it seemed suddenly easier.

If whatever place Cas took him to next was half as good as this, it would be a comfortable life, a better life, than any he had had cause to imagine.

The sun rose high above him, and Dean basked in it.


	3. Cas

It had been just over a day since they had arrived at Cas’s home and Dean had taken no time in making himself acquainted with every aspect of it. The indoor space – an over crop of rock that Cas had built up around to make into a series of connected rooms – hadn’t seemed to interest him a great deal, no matter how pleased he’d been to find a full stock of food and a variety of clothes to choose from.

But the outdoor space had mesmerised him. Castiel always looked forward to showing people the wonder of his home. The clear fast flowing stream and bright green woods, the expanse of sky and swift flights of birds as they came and went.

Dean’s look of amazement had been just as he’d expected. What he hadn’t expected was how much Dean had done since then. Most of the people Cas brought here spent the next few days in quiet contemplation, sleeping, meditating, nervously looking over their shoulder back towards the life they’d been forced to leave.

Dean had got almost straight to work. He’d organised the clothing items Cas kept to hand for the people who came into his care – first by type, and then by size. He’d asked Cas what he spent his days doing and when Cas replied that he spent the days caring for the animals that lived here and tending to his garden and the trees, he’d enthusiastically decided to join in.

Cas realised Dean liked to be busy, to use his hands and feel useful, to be productive and have something to work towards. They’d spent the first afternoon shoring up one of the dams that Cas used to make a body of still water by the side of stream for some of the animals that needed it. Dean had to stop and rest at regular intervals, the air up in the mountains was much thinner than he was used to – but he didn’t complain.

And Dean talked, not incessantly, but he made their time more amicable by telling Cas stories from his youth and upbringing, and touched on the losses he had endured. Cas knew more than Dean told him, but it never seemed to be the right time to say so, and so he skirted around the edges of these conversations until Dean would move on.

Dean was curious too, and asked about the trees and wildlife Cas made his home amongst, eager to learn as much about Cas as he revealed about himself. He was wary, Cas could tell, noticing that Dean never turned his back on him and tracked his movements whenever Cas walked away. It was understandable after how they’d met and how volatile the time in Dean’s life had been immediately before that. Cas felt a growing respect for Dean in the way he didn’t shy away from the ugly truth of the situation but didn’t hold it against Cas either.

Over a crackling fire and a meal of toasted bread, cheese and fruit Dean was much quieter, contemplative even. But the silence wasn’t strained and Cas felt no need to push him into conversation.

Castiel woke early the next morning, sun bright, sky clear and began the day as he usually did. He checked for eggs, he looked over his beehives, and then spent a chunk of time with his head buried in the undergrowth untwisting some vines that were becoming too tangled for the smaller critters to navigate.

As he stood he realised there were twigs and dead leaves tangled in his hair, he was about to remove them when two thrushes alighted onto his head and began to pick them loose. Cas held still and muttered hellos and thank yous as they worked. He thought that would be the end of their interaction for the day but as he turned to walk back to his rooms one perched on his shoulder and tugged at his collar.

“What’s wrong little one?” he asked. Not that he expected an answer in words but the sound of his voice rumbled out comfortingly all the same.

The thrush flew to a nearby branch and twittered. Cas followed. He trod carefully after it as it went from tree to tree and led him to the rocky face of the mountain. Both thrushes were present now and swooping above him in loops and dives.

“Something even further up? Well, alright, Dean will just have to look after himself for a while this morning.”

Cas climbed up to the nearest ledge and when he realised he needed to go even further to follow his feathered friends he took a moment and turned into himself. He folded slowly into one of the shapes he’d learned over the years, and came out the other side a lot smaller, and a lot more orange. A mountain fox, nimble and sure footed.

The birds took a moment to acquaint themselves with his new form, landing on the ground and tentatively hopping close. When they were satisfied it was still Castiel, they led him on.

 

* * *

 

 

On his way back down the mountain face Cas noticed how much higher in the sky the sun hung. The time it had taken to walk carefully along the cliff face to the trouble his thrushes had found had trickled away faster than he’d thought. There had been a hare trapped in a gully, Cas had gladly helped it out but it had been frightened, it didn’t know him and it took a long time of sitting and gaining its trust before it would let him approach to be able to pick it up and carry it out.

Cas ambled back along the path he’d travelled, fox skin folded around himself for dexterity over the rocks. His thoughts were full of food and sun warmed ground, he hurried but he wasn’t worried. Once he was back among the trees of his clearing and nearing home he began the process of turning into his human self, his most natural self. He changed slowly, his fox fur thinning and ghosting away, his human self reappearing from underneath.

He paused at the last point of change, emerging slowly, rising from paws, to knees, to feet. A swathe of light sparked around him casting a sharp shadow on the ground. Castiel stood and rolled his shoulders, stretching his muscles back into use.

He turned and found Dean mouth agape with a horrified expression across his face. Dean stared at the ground behind Cas, the place where the shadow version of his transformation had played out over the grass.

Finally Dean looked up into his face and shook his head, eyes narrowed and breathing shallowly, “What are you?”

“Dean,” Cas took a step forward and Dean stumbled back, “it’s just me,”

“I can see that, I asked you what you are.”

“I am many things, I have many names in the languages of men. Seraph, pheonix, angel, mage, to name a few. I only go by my name now, Castiel.”

“What, I mean that display, and the way you healed me… I don’t understand what you _are,_ what you can do. You’re this powerful being, you have, you can,” Dean waved a hand towards Cas and Cas looked down at himself puzzled and a little disheartened at Dean’s reaction. Cas wouldn’t have chosen to show Dean his powers like this while he was so unprepared for it.

“What’s your purpose here, what have you been doing all these years? Why are you here, are we… am I safe with you? What can you really do?”

“Which question would you like me to answer first?”

“Let’s start with whether or not you’re dangerous,” Dean said resolutely. “I mean I have known you as this thing that devours souls for most of my life, so yeah, let’s start with that.”

Cas settled his feet more firmly on the ground, wiggling his bare toes into the dirt. Earth, connection, lifeblood, that was a good place to start.

“I am not dangerous, I have never knowingly hurt another living soul in all my time on earth.”

Cas watched the words ease Dean’s mind, saw his muscles relax minutely. He hoped his next words wouldn’t snatch that away again.

“The power I have could be dangerous, it is… well, magic I suppose you would call it. In the wrong hands…” he trailed off, and tracked Dean’s line of thinking as it showed across his face.

“But you’re not the wrong hands,” Dean said firmly.

“No. I hope not, I try not to be. I keep myself hidden from most people because I don’t want to encourage the wrong people to attempt to get their hands on a power like mine.”

“So what can you do?”

“It would be easier to tell you what I am, the nature of where I came from, if you’re ready to know?”

“Okay, go right ahead,” Dean shrugged, but Cas felt the tension fizzling away, and the air was clearer too.

Cas sat himself down onto the cool grass, the last of the morning's dew soaking into his clothes. Dean followed suit after a moment's hesitation and settled back against a tree trunk.

“My kind, seraphim, we watch over earth and its inhabitants, we see everything and we always have. There is good, and there is bad, and I can sense it. All of it, all the time. Imagine… there’s a song humming in your mind all the time, and sometimes you find yourself getting the notes wrong and it sounds jarring, and other times you remember it just right and everything feels harmonious. My kind are a little like that, the background noise of existence playing through in every moment, we’re attuned to it.”

“You, _sing?_ At the frequency of the universe?”

“Yes, in a way, we do. And we, _they_ , make use of this gift to keep things in alignment on a more grand scale. Keep things balanced and as they should be.”

“They, not you?” Dean asked quietly.

“No, I am not one of them anymore, I – I suppose you could say I fell,” Cas said. He couldn’t keep the sadness out of his voice, even after all these millennia and all these reasons he’d found to go on, he still missed the host.

Dean leaned forward, reaching across the space between them, his hand hovered in uncertainty before splayinging on the ground next to Castiel's knee. He didn’t rush Cas to keep speaking, Cas looked into his eyes and noticed for the first time how green they were, the forest light amplifying what was already there. And there was a gentleness in them, mixed in with the fierce, determined will to live that Cas had seen already. There was kindness, the caring nature Cas had seen in Dean’s mind that first night, leaking out of them directed unwaveringly at Cas.

It startled Cas, to see it so plainly. Dean wore his heart on his sleeve it seemed, ready to give it over to anyone who needed it, even the being he thought would be his captor for painful long days before.

It reminded Cas so utterly of the man he’d made his promise to, the one Dean didn’t know about yet.

“I reached too far towards earth, captivated by everything your planet held, and I lost my grip on the heavens. I landed here,” Cas looked around at the crater he’d made into his home, “and it seemed as good a place as any to settle.”

“You landed here?” Dean asked as he looked up at the height of the mountain behind them and the chunk of missing rock in the the North facing wall. “You did this? Did it hurt?”

“I didn't have a physical form back then so it didn’t hurt the way you mean, but it didn’t feel pleasant either.”

“Wait, this isn’t how you always looked?”

“No I was a ball of pure energy, the mountain stopped my descent, but not before I’d scoured out the side of it. I floated around earth, desolate, for a very long time. Until I started paying enough attention to humans to learn to imitate them. A few years later I was able to build myself a body.” Cas smiled at Dean, who lifted his lips tentatively in return.

“So, then… you came back?”

“I came back,” Cas echoed. “I had nowhere to call my own, none of my own kind to commune with, exploring my new life in the place it began seemed like the best course of action. When I came back, it had been many years and life had taken on a will of its own,” Cas gestured at the forest, the greenery surrounding them, “like it was just waiting for my return.”

Dean looked in wonderment at Cas, and at the trees around them. “It’s hard to imagine it not always having been here, it seems so old.”

“Just a little younger than me, I suppose.”

“So you’re pretty ancient, apparently mountain-proof, and can turn into – what just a fox or…?”

Cas laughed, and it took him by surprise. Dean smiled and then looked suddenly very sad.

“Dean?”

He cleared his throat, “Nothing, it’s nothing Cas, carry on.”

“You're in distress.”

“Nah, man I’m not, it’s only, a few days ago I didn’t think I’d ever see anyone laugh again. Didn’t think _I’d_ ever laugh again, and definitely didn’t think the ‘mountain deity’ would be sitting on the ground with me sharing life stories. And it’s great but...”

“But?”

“I don’t know where I go from here,” Dean said softly, looking at his hands. “Everything I knew was back there, _everyone_ I knew. What else can I do with my life, out on my own? How did you do it?”

He looked up at Cas like Cas might really have the answers. Usually Cas just set people on the right path, sent them down river and away from his homeland if they were corrupt – he couldn’t cure the whole world after all, but he could look after his own people – or he took them to the other side of this domain, to a life with fairer weather and kinder people and let them find a place for themselves.

This time he might be able to do more than that, this time he might have more of a life to offer Dean than Dean realised.

“I found a purpose, you’ll find one too.”

“What’s your purpose then? What great thing did you find to make all this worth it?” Dean said it with forced joviality, turning away from his own problem like it was too big to face.

“I do what I always did, but on a much smaller scale. I can find the good and bad in creation and help balance it out. The trees, the plants, the animals, even people. I cut away what’s bad and I nurture the good.”

“You make it sound so simple. Does everything really boil down to good and bad with you?”

Cas smiled ruefully, “Sadly no, at least not with people. Animals are easier, they’re hurt or scared or lost and I can guide them. Or vicious and dangerous and I can soothe them. Plants are either healthy or have parasite or fungus and I can cut away the ruined part so it grows back stronger. People, they’re the complex ones.”

Dean nodded, seemingly satisfied.

“I’m glad you don’t view us all as weights on a scale. I’ve done some questionable things in my life, but I like to think that doesn’t make me a lost cause.”

“Not at all, I would never judge someone for their life choices, even those I send away I send away with the hope that they will do better elsewhere, however unlikely it seems. It’s what’s in your soul, your heart, that matters most.”

Dean sucked in a breath. “Did you see it? My soul I mean, is that what I felt when you touched me?”

“Yes.”

Dean stood abruptly, agitated. Wiping his hands angrily on his trousers.

“What is it Dean, what did I say wrong?”

“Just seems like a bit of a violation is all, looking into a guys soul without asking.” He turned and began walking back towards the campsite, shrugging.

Cas stood quickly and followed. “I try Dean, I do my best with the tools I have, it’s not–

“I’m not saying you have many better options, I’m just saying it like I see it.”

“I don’t enjoy dragging people from their homes in chains, I don’t enjoy forcing them to confront a new reality, but I can’t take on an entire clan of people who would fight me at every turn,” Cas said, not without a little anger creeping in. “I have power Dean, but I am not all powerful. I can’t make people change, I can’t undo years of conditioning that makes them think this is a good way to live, and if they knew what I could do they might try and take it from me, and then what help could I be?”

“I know,” Dean sighed, “but you searched my soul without me knowing, and you scared me and kept me chained for hours, and I can’t turn off how that feels. Even if I do like you now that I know you, it’s… it’s just a mess, Cas.”

Castiel nodded, and they walked forward in silence. They reached camp and there was a fire burning ready that Dean had started before he came looking for Cas. Castiel took a deep breath and vowed to help Dean see what good could be before him now, even though he couldn’t undo the past.

 

* * *

 

 

Cas had flown away from Dean after a quick, but late, breakfast. He’d explained while they ate that he needed to go ahead and make arrangements with the community that would take Dean in while he got his feet back under him, to let them know that he was coming.

Dean had frowned and asked why they needed advanced warning, Cas reminded him that he didn’t always have someone to bring, that if he was sending that year’s sacrifice away he would take them down to the jetty himself, to the river that would carry them away.

Dean nodded, seeming sullen and reserved. He’d perked up significantly at Cas telling him he would be turning into a bird to fly there, and that Dean could watch.

It was one of the more impressive shapes Castiel had learned to construct and inhabit, a goshawk, dark brown-grey plumage with a shock of white speckled feathers covering the breast.

The transformation from man to bird was fairly quick and painless, and Cas noticed happily how amazed Dean looked as he waved Cas away.

Now, up in the clear air, wind in his wings Cas thought ahead to whom he was going to see.

Sam.

Cas flew a little faster at the thought.

 

* * *

 

 

Barely more than an hour later Cas had covered the ground between his home and Sam’s. He circled round and cawed as he did so. Sam appeared out of the door of his home, beaming as he looked into the sky for Cas.

He flew to an outcrop of rock not far down the mountain road near to Sam’s home and resumed his human form. Sam jogged up minutes later, barely out of breath and grinning from ear to ear.

He embraced Cas, warm and close and comforting. Cas sagged into his touch letting all his worries and the swirl of thoughts from the last few days ease away. Sam knew that what he called “the giving days” were hard on Cas, raising emotions and bringing up ugly thoughts and truths many times.

He pulled away and cupped Cas’s face in his work-worn hands, and then pulled him in for a quick kiss. His touch soothed Cas, and he took a moment to gather himself.

“How was it?” Sam asked when he had run his tongue over Cas’s lip.

“A struggle,” Cas answered, and took Sam’s hands in his own. “It’s him.”

No way to say it rather than state it plainly.

Sam took half a step back, chest heaving with the news. His eyes were bright, hazel gleaming in the midday sun, as they flicked back and forth reading Cas’s face for confirmation.

“It’s my brother?”

“Yes.”

Sam broke into a dimpled smile, laughed, half sobbed, nodding his head. He turned a worried eye to Cas. “How is he?”

“In good health, and they didn’t harm him too badly.” Tension eased in Sam at that. “He didn’t take too kindly to me, but he’s happily at the homestead now.”

“They never like you at first Cas, you know that.” Cas nodded, saving his ever growing concerns for later. Sam needed him right now and there’d be time for discussion, and to tell him Dean’s perspective on everything, another day.

Sam perched on the rock and Cas settled in beside him.

“What’s he like?” he asked quietly.

Cas thought about how to describe Dean, brow furrowed until Sam nudged him expectantly.  
“Brave; resilient; strong willed, and opinionated. Kind, when he doesn’t need to be. Practical and… not open minded exactly but ready to face the truth whatever that may be.” It was as complete a description as Cas could give in a few words.

Sam was greedy for any morsel Cas would offer, eagerly leaning forward hands gripped on his thighs. Cas smiled and drew closer to Sam’s warmth, happy to see him happy.

“I’m sure you will get to know him better than I.”

They walked slowly back to Sam’s house, Sam flickering between bouncing lively, excited at the prospect before him, and turning subdued with worried lines across his forehead.

“What did you tell him about me?” Sam asked

“Nothing yet,” Cas said reluctantly. “He doesn’t know that I know you.”

“He doesn’t know that I’m here?” Sam replied, hurt, but curious.

“He didn’t know anything Sam. He didn’t know about how I help people, how I get them out, about any other side of me other than this malicious being that apparently wants human sacrifices. I’ve been easing him into all of it the best I can. I was ready to tell him the first night but he was exhausted, overwhelmed, he and stopped me before I got anywhere.”

“It’s okay, it’s a lot.”

“Sam, he doesn’t even know you’re alive.”

Sam was shocked at that, frown deepening and hands shaking.

“What does he think happened?”

“That you died along with your mother, and that his father left not long after.”

They’d stopped walking, finding themselves outside Sam’s door. Sam nodded, looked shaken and a little taken aback.

“I just always assumed he would think I was out here somewhere. I assumed he grew up knowing it was at least possible that you’d helped Dad get me out, that he’d have hope at least.”

“I don’t think he had that kind of upbringing.”

“Oh god,” Sam said paling further, “he was completely alone, I always knew it was unfair – I had Dad and he had neither of us, but to not even have the hope of us? I can’t even imagine...” he trailed off.

Cas placed a hand on Sam’s shoulder and squeezed. Sam shook himself, his eyes refocusing, and nodded. “Guess we’ve got a lot to catch up on, might as well make a start.” He pushed open his unlocked door and Cas followed him inside.

 

* * *

 

 

Sam’s home was a long wooden hut, built by his own hands. He’d made it warm and inviting and filled it with books. The table was nearly always cluttered, papers and drawings and herbal studies. Cas may have had the power to heal illness and injury, but he wasn’t always around and Sam had taken great interest in finding cures and balms for ailments. He had always liked helping people, making use of his time even as a child to take care of the people around him.

Cas always presumed it was partly because he’d never been able to help his father through his broken heart, and how John had taken to drink to numb it. So Sam had turned his mind and soul onto what he could fix, and worked at it single-mindedly.

Cas felt at ease here, in a way he never did anywhere except for his own small valley sanctuary. He’d spent so much time in Sam’s company it was practically a second home. He busied himself clearing and tidying, huffing a quiet laugh at the amount of possessions Sam had acquired over the years.

When he could finally see some table top, he turned and found Sam crouched by the fire grate, watching the kettle boil.

“I don’t know how I’m going to connect with him,” Sam said quietly. “What if he hates me, because Dad picked me over him?”

“I can’t promise anything, but he doesn’t seem the kind to hate unquestioningly. I feel he may be more angry with your father than you.”

Sam looked up at him through the long strands of his hair. “Do you think I should write a letter to Dad, get him to come back?”

Cas thought about this for a moment, about how four years ago John had woken up one day and declared he was going off down river and away, to put distance between himself and the devils that plagued him here. The loss of his wife, the leaving behind of his eldest son when he felt he had no other option, had eaten away at him until he was a shell of his former self. He didn't want to be reminded of it all day after day. He’d sent word months later with details of how to contact him, but Sam had had no reason to – until now.

“I think,” Cas said carefully, “that one new family member at a time might be good. You and Dean should spend some time alone, and then together you can decide when it’s the right time to add your father into the mix.”

Sam nodded and sighed, pouring out hot water for tea and slumping into a chair.

“I always wonder if he should have done it differently you know, left me, and gone back to Dean.” There was guilt troubling Sam’s eyes and Cas leaned forward to clutch his hand.

“I know, but you can’t change it now. Life only moves forward.” It was a mantra Cas tried to remember, that he couldn’t change the past, that he could only live in the present, and only alter the future. He wasn’t sure it was all that comforting but it was practical and sometimes that was the same thing.

Sam drew in a long breath, and Cas watched him file away his worries and emotions to deal with another day. It was something they were both getting too good at doing. He wished Sam wouldn’t, they were here together, possibly alone for the last time in the near future and he wanted to help and lend comfort – let Sam express everything he was thinking with no-one else around worry about. But once Sam had made up his mind on something there was no changing it.

“Okay, so how do I prepare for him being here? I can’t even think… what do I need to do?”

Cas smiled, and looked around his humble home. “Well, a bed might be a start, and he doesn’t have very many clothes, and a space to call his own. Anything you can offer him, he doesn’t have anything, or anyone else, whatever you can give him will be plenty.”

“I don’t have much to offer,” Sam began hesitantly.

“Material objects are not the things of most value in this world Sam, your friendship, your loyalty and acceptance, those will be the things worth treasuring.”

“Do you think he’ll like me?” he asked, small and quiet. A child’s fear, and a man's hope.

“I’ve yet to meet anyone who hasn’t, you certainly made short work of winning me over,” Cas replied and kissed him. Sam let him and they spent long minutes finding solace in each others mouths, in the closeness. Words were not the only way to converse and they shared all their worries and doubts, looking for the comfort of the familiar to wash them away, even if only for a little while.


	4. Cas

By the time Cas left him, Sam had dutifully made lists of everything he could do within a day to reorganise his life and his home. Sam had a second bedroom but it was piled high with boxes and the mattress on the bed was old, ratty and thin. He’d rattled off a list of people who could help help him acquire what he needed and though he was restless with nervous energy, he was focused.

Cas promised he’d see him soon, and that had mellowed him too, he wasn’t in this alone.

But for Cas the next biggest hurdle was breaking the news to Dean. He couldn’t rightfully expect to continue on with the secret until they were at Sam’s door, but Cas worried that he’d be so angry with Cas that he’d leave, strike out on his own or refuse to speak or listen to him without getting all the information.

It was a delicate situation and that was _not_ Cas’s forte.

Dean knew something was different as soon as Cas arrived back. Cas realised that for every moment he had been watching and learning Dean’s behaviour, his own had been scrutinised too.

“Can we eat, I’m famished,” Cas asked, not untruthfully either. Having something to do and focus on was just a bonus.

“You remember me saying I had promised to keep you safe?” he began, haltingly, and then diving in.

Dean frowned, picking at his nails, plate of food carefully placed beside him. “I recall something to that effect yes. I was gonna ask about it the next day but this,” he waved a hand around the valley, “kind of distracted me. I hadn't thought about it until now.”

Cas looked over the place he knew so well, his home, the home he had made – his past and future meeting in this one place, choices and decisions and memories. It pained him, because he was about to take something precious from Dean: his own recollection of his childhood destroyed in a matter of words, and though he had something to offer in its place it wouldn’t stop the sting. A deep breath, drawing resolve from the air around him and he stepped into heat of the moment.

“The person I promised that to, was your brother.”

“I don’t have a brother,” Dean replied and he didn’t even look phased or like it has bothered him at all.

“Yes, you do, his name is Sam. I’ve known him his whole life,”

Dean brought a hand up to halt him. “I _had_ a brother, and yeah his name was Samuel, but he died Cas, didn’t even make it past his first day on earth. Whoever you’ve been talking to it’s not my Sam.”

He started eating again and Cas slowly leaned over and took the plate from him.

“Dean, listen to me very carefully: it _is_ your Sam.” Dean began to scowl then, trepidation and unease setting his features harshly. “Your father, John Winchester, brought him to me – came to me himself – needing to get away, to get Sam to safety. I walked them through to the other side, your brother in my arms.”

“No,” Dean protested, “it can’t be, and how would you even know anyway? You don’t know what my dad looked like, you don’t know.”

“I do, I saw it, in his memories which he shared with me willingly over the years, and in your memories the night we met.”

Dean spluttered, rising to his feet in anger, but hurt coursing out of him too.

“I know my dad left me okay, I know he walked out, but if he’d come to you he would’ve brought me with him!” He paced around the fire, and Cas let him wear himself out while he ranted. “And Sammy? He was a baby, what danger could he have possibly been in to warrant needing your help? Nothing happened, he wasn’t even a kid, he was an infant!”

“Dean.”

He stopped pacing and looked at Cas pleadingly, and Cas ached to grasp his hand or embrace him, though he didn’t.

“Why are you telling me this? It can’t be true.”

“And yet I promise you it is, and I promise you your brother is waiting to meet you on the other side of these mountains. I know it hurts Dean, more pieces of your life that don’t fit like they used to, but it’s not all bad. Please sit, let me explain, to start at the beginning.”

Dean sat down, frown a deep scowl, eyes not rising to meet Cas’s and waved his hand to make Cas continue talking.

“Your mother, what do you remember about her death?”

“She died during childbirth, or very soon after, I’m not sure on the timeline,” Dean said quietly.

“That is what I know, yes.”

“Great, so the worst thing about my childhood was real, fantastic, what else?”

“Your brother–”

“Died along with her,” Dean interrupted, muttering.

“Was weak, small,” Cas continued like Dean hadn’t spoken, “but survived.”

Dean shook his head, but he was looking at Cas now with an unreadable expression.

“Your father knew, understood, that a child who caused their mother’s death, and was born with strange birth marks would be seen as cursed. Evil, a monster, something dangerous, and that the people would cry out for him to be banished, drowned, or at best he’d be taken from his family and raised in a strict religious environment.”

“But… it’s not like it was the baby’s fault? That’s barbaric,” Dean paused, lost in memories. “But, I mean, enough shit happens in that town that I can see people believing that too.”

“It’s not a fact that I feel any joy in relaying, but it has happened before,” Cas said, wearily, remembering, and he hadn’t been able to save them all. “John had an impossible choice to make. If he could get the infant out, Sam would be safe, and he could say that the child had died along with his mother and the issue would be over. But if he did that, that baby would be alone and he wouldn’t know who would be raising his son.”

He took a deep breath, weighing the words. “He could go with the child, keep him a secret for a day or two and then slip out. Everyone would assume he couldn’t deal with the loss of his wife and baby son, and chose to abandon his eldest child rather than be faced with the pain, they wouldn’t think anything more of it,”

Cas watched Dean’s face for some sign of how he was affected by this, and there was pain there but a quiet acceptance too. “I don’t understand why he wouldn’t take me with him.”

“Smuggling a four-year-old out of the town, alone, without drawing attention or without you giving away that your baby brother had survived seemed too impossible a task. And he felt that if he left with you too, people who be suspicious and think there was something to be hidden, and go looking for you all. He knew the people who would take care of you if you stayed behind, people who loved you already as one of their own. He wouldn’t be leaving you with strangers like he would have if he’d sent Sam away and gone back to you. It seemed, to him, the least painful of his choices.”

Dean shook his head, eyes shiny with tears. And he got up and walked away. Cas let him go and saved his food for later.

When Dean returned less than an hour later it was with less of a scowl and more of a guarded sadness. He ate, and they sat in silence, and then Dean asked one question.

“So he didn’t want to leave me?”

“No Dean, he didn’t want to leave you. He regretted it, he hated himself for it, his life with Sam has been a good one, but he always felt like something was missing. You, your mother, the life you should have had.”

“He’s been that miserable?”

“A lot of the time, yes.”

“I always hoped he’d found some kind of peace. I mean I hated the guy for walking out on me, but as I got older… I dunno, I hoped it had been worth it at least.”

“Saving your brother, that made it worth it,” Cas stated, because there wasn’t even a question.

Dean sucked in a breath. “I can’t wrap my mind around it. I mourned him you know? This kid, this boy he should have been, I missed having a brother and all this time he’s been out here.”

“He’s been waiting to meet you a long time, always hoping you would join them, once you were old enough.”

“How would I? How could I have possibly known?”

“Your father believed that Missouri would have told you the myths, the hope I suppose you’d call it, and that you’d put the pieces together.”

“Missouri? Moseley? Why would she have told me anything? Is that who Dad heard it from, that weird old kook?”

“Yes, she told him, she gave him the information he used to get out – though I don’t believe she knew for certain that’s what he’d done.”

“But how did he think that I’d spend enough time around her to hear it? I hardly ever spoke to the woman.”

“She… John thought she would be involved in raising you, possibly even be the one who you lived with? They were close, your mother and father and her.”

“Bobby Singer raised me, took me in on the day Dad left and didn’t let me out of his sight until I was old enough to defend myself. Man saved my life more than once, thought mostly from my own stupidity.” Dean dug his toes into the soil. “This, me being gone, it’ll push him further over the edge into cranky old man territory,” Dean paused. “If it doesn’t destroy him,” he added darkly.

“This Bobby, your father spoke of him fondly enough, I got the impression they hadn’t always got along though.”

“No, not if Bobby’s stories were anything like the truth. Drove each other crazy, but they had the same values so I reckon Bobby did right by him in how he helped me turn out.”

“But he never spoke of… well, this? Me?”

“No, too much of a straight shooter, ‘stick to what you know and leave the daydreaming to everyone else’ he’d say. He’d also say I’m foolish for believing a word out of your mouth, but then I always was a softer touch.”

“Softness isn’t weakness, having compassion, understanding, these are good qualities.”

“Do you see me saying they aren’t? But I will tell you, I don’t know how to trust that you’re not making this all up, or that there isn’t something else you’re not saying.” Dean looked him hard in the eye, seeming to weigh him up but if Cas was found wanting, Dean didn’t show it. “I guess tomorrow will tell.”

“If there’s anything more you want to know, ask, I won’t hold anything back.”

Dean rubbed his hands, palm across palm and then wiped them on his trousers. The fire was burning low so he stuck some more kindling into the flames. Cas took a sweet breath of night air and watched the stars wheel overhead.

“So, tell me about Sam, about how close you two are.”

Cas brightened, because that was something he could do.

 

* * *

 

 

They set out the next day, walking leisurely. There was only a short stretch of tunnel on this side of the mountain, after barely an hour it opened out onto a rocky ledge and a narrow path down through a high gorge.

It was easier walking in the sunlight, open air and a fresh breeze ruffling through their hair. There was no forest on this side, rocky ground slowly gave way to scrubby grazing fields and then lush farmland. They walked in step, and Cas barely noticed the slight gasp of amazement that was drawn from Dean at the sight of the easy to work land, green and fruitful and sunlit.

Several times Cas tried to start conversation and Dean humoured him but didn’t carry his side of it, falling into silence with his eyes resolutely fixed on the path ahead.

“Are you angry with me?” he asked as their second hour of walking neared its end.

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, alright.”

“It’s just,” Dean threw up his arms in frustrating and stopped walking, “how many more things have you kept from me?”

“Nothing to my knowledge, I swear it.”

“And I’m supposed to just believe that?”

“I suppose not.”

Dean sighed. “I’m pissed, don’t get me wrong, but I really hope you’re telling the truth. Not sure I can handle any more surprise developments.”

“Dean, will you try not to be angry with Sam? He didn’t ask me to keep his existence a secret, and he didn’t ask to live his life away from you.”

“I know that man, I’m not just some hot tempered guy who can’t keep a lid on things. I’m not gonna blame him for what happened when he was a kid.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m not doing it for you, but… why do you care?”

“I care about Sam, as I said, I wouldn’t want to see him hurt.”

“And I wouldn’t hurt him, I don’t even know him,” Dean said more quietly. “Fuck, I have a brother out here all these years and I never knew. And what, now we’re just supposed to try and pretend we can be brothers? We’re strangers!”

Ah, so there it was Cas thought, Dean was as nervous as he was angry and that was half the problem.

“You don’t have to pretend anything, you just have an opportunity to build the family you didn’t think you’d ever have.”

“I had family – of a sort – back there too, y’know,” Dean said jabbing a thumb over his shoulder, “and I had to leave them, and they think I’m dead. Starting afresh with all these expectations doesn’t sound easy right now.”

Dean looked over at him when minutes had passed and Cas realised he’d never said anything more, Dean raised his eyebrows in question and Cas smiled tightly at realising how well he was learning his mannerisms.

“Sorry, I got lost in thought.”

“Share with the class,” Dean said flatly, but not unkindly.

“This, your separation from everything you knew, the pain and the hurt – not to mention the fear that builds each year before the sacrifice is chosen, this is exactly why I hate it. All of it. The entire idea, that at one time seemed so unavoidable… it’s no easier to fix now, if anything it’s harder, it’s more entrenched in their minds. But it’s doing more damage than I ever anticipated.”

Dean looked at him with surprise. “You feel that strongly about it?”

“Yes.”

“I never guessed, I mean I figured you were resigned to it, but not that you cared about changing it.”

“The problem is not knowing how to go about changing it. They all think I’m dangerous, and those in power use it as a perfect excuse to offload troublesome people in a way they think is very final. I can’t just waltz into the centre of town and expect that to go well. There’d be panic, an uprising, it could do more harm than good.”

“Alistair’s got them all wrapped around his finger alright,” Dean said darkly.

“That man is pure evil, I feel it rolling off him in waves every year.”

“So, what does Sam suggest you do?”

“He… he thinks time will change things slowly and more naturally, and that it will stick if we let it take its course, and that I shouldn’t put myself in harms way to alter things, when good will win out in the end.”

“Sounds very scholarly,” Dean hedged, looking sideways at him.

Cas laughed, “Yes, well, he’s ever the mediator, always a careful thinker.”

“Not like me, a hot head who’ll just rush in,” Dean said with a soft laugh.

“There are things about you that are similar.”

“I guess I’ll look forward to finding out what those things are. But what you have to decide is: what kind of person do _you_ want to be?”

 

* * *

 

 

Through the long hours of the morning, past midday and into the afternoon they walked, conversation flowing more freely now they’d hashed out their differences.

Dean wanted to know so many things about Sam, about his life, about the world he was walking out into. Cas tried to give him the bare bones of the details, leaving Sam enough room to fill in in his own words when the time came.

As they caught sight of the first houses in the distance, Dean got quieter. There was a scowl on his face that Cas thought he probably didn’t know was there.

“He doesn’t expect anything of you, you know,” he said hesitantly. “He’s just excited to meet you.”

“Mmm.” Dean nodded in tight lipped agreement, and then stopped walking down the path and took a few steps into the long wild grasses.

“Dean?”

He waved a hand back at Cas, impatience clear in the gesture. Cas took it as his cue to give Dean a moment to collect himself.

He looked ahead and picked out which house was Sam’s, and wondered how _he_ was feeling. Cas longed to change form and fly ahead, to take Sam’s hand as he saw his brother appear over the horizon, but he couldn’t very well abandon Dean either, he cared too much to abandon him at the last hurdle.

Dean gathered his emotions and his will and set off walking again while Cas was musing over how fond he’d become of Dean in such a short time and he had to hurry to keep up.

It wasn’t far to Sam’s house now, down the path and around the rocky outcrop, and there it was.

And there he was, striding towards them.

Dean quickened his pace and they met on an unidentifiable patch of grass, a small speck of land of no importance to anyone but the three of them.

They paused awkwardly, before Dean stretched out his hand and Sam grasped his forearm, it was a sight Cas would never forget, the two of them clutching arm to arm, and smiling.

“Dean,” Sam said quietly.

“That’s me, you must be Sammy.”

Sam’s face did a strange thing then. A little jolt, confusion and happiness warring over which was strongest.

“No one has called me that in a long time.”

“Sorry.”

“No don’t be, it’s fine.”

“It’s just what Mom and Dad always called you, even… even before you were born they had the name picked out.”

Sam’s eyes sparkled, flicking briefly to Cas filled with emotion.

“I like it, you can call me that, if you want.”

“Okay,” Dean nodded tightly, and removed his arm from Sam’s grip.

“I was telling Dean a lot about your life, as we walked,” Cas spoke up, breaking the tension.

Sam laughed, “Not sure there’s much tell it’s been pretty mundane!”

“Well, it’s all new to me,” Dean replied striving for lightness.

“Yeah,”

Sam looked lost and Cas stepped in. “Shall we head inside?”

 

* * *

 

 

Cas transformed into the goshawk again and flew a long, swooping route home after he left Dean with Sam. It was late in the day, the sun setting behind him and throwing his shadow stretching ahead across the earth. He focused on the physical world, his feathers, his keen eyesight picking out the details of the ground below. He didn’t want to think.

He’d enjoyed his days with company, working alongside Dean and talking. And his time with Sam had been too brief. Cas didn’t want to intrude on their reunion or else he’d have stayed longer. He and Sam often spent long stretches of time apart, caught in the routine of their own lives, but he missed him fiercely, especially after the intense few days he’d had.

Sam tried to make light of the time Cas spent each year uprooting lives and playing judge and jury over who got to stay and who he couldn’t save. But they both knew it was difficult, taxing, and Cas grew tired of it more each season it fell. He felt old in his bones, he felt a recklessness growing inside him urging him to make a change.

He’d never liked this role the humans had thrust upon him and second guessed his decision to continue with the charade every time. It would calm during the months in between but it wasn’t going away. Sam told him to be patient, that change could only come with time. But Sam was young, and despite his troubled start to life he still had hope. He still saw the good in people, saw the _potential_ for good in everything.

Cas supposed he was jaded. He loved the times the kinder, gentler, myths around him reached the ears of people who truly needed his help. How they would leave their homes under the cover of night, or hurry to him in desperate fear, and find peace when he found them.

How they’d smile when he greeted them. Offer up their trust so he would lead them safely through the mountain pass, bring them to the greener, softer life in the east. Better farming, easier weather, no corrupt towns or evil people. Young mothers, with children clasped in their arms, hungry for a softer life. Or elderly couples who had lived long years and finally grown tired of the state of their existence. Young men mistreated, cajoled and blackmailed into becoming thugs and thieves who only wanted to find peace – Cas would help them all.

Even those who chose to sail away to lands beyond Cas’s reach were glad and grateful for the help, for the chance to start over.

But more and more often the _sacrifices_ handed over to him were hardened, ugly examples of humanity. Resistant to change and happy to live uncaring of who they hurt. Cas didn’t know what happened in the towns west of the mountains, how corruption could run so deep – he asked every year how it was becoming so bad and no one had been able to answer him yet.

He circled down towards his clearing, heart heavy, and for the first time he wasn’t filled with calm at the site of his home. It looked empty, a sad collection of his existence. He turned and looked east, looked toward Sam. And Dean. To the home they would make together. Cas longed to make it with them.

 

* * *

 

 

Cas settled into his usual routine as though nothing had happened – or at least he tried to. His thoughts were scattered, whipping like a maelstrom inside his mind. He had expected to have a few days with Sam to talk over his mounting frustrations and try and ease his worries but that hadn’t happened.

Even his grace seemed out of sorts. Twice in one day he had taken to work tending his plots and had to start over when he realised he wasn’t paying attention.

He paused and took a cleansing breath, and then extended his powers again, letting his mind split into tendrils and examine the ground around his crops. There, a dark spot, rot pushing up through the soil; and here, a rock blocking a root; elsewhere a leaf withering that needed to be culled. It was simple work, but it connected him to the earth and his chosen purpose. It gave his mind time to process in the background.

What he had taken to doing at random intervals through the day was meditating. He sat still, extending his power further, past his own small lot of land, down through the woods and trees and across streams. He was looking for scarred and broken things, looking for patterns. The more he practiced, the better he got, until he could direct his wandering mind more precisely and further than he’d ever been able to since taking a physical form.

Cas hoped to find some telling sign of a way to make a change. He cast his mind east, and, floating through a scattered consciousness, down the winding path to Sam’s house. He could sense the souls inside: Sam steady and at ease, but with a hint of sadness at his core. And Dean, more chaotic, less sure, a bundle of concerns and energy that wrapped around Sam, grasping for purchase.

Cas smiled to himself up in his mountain wood and pushed his grace along. There was very little bad here, the people were content, safe. Even the ground and roots felt purer, sun warmed and sweet. The air clean and new, leaving everything with the impression of soft smells after a light rain; if goodness had a physical presence this is what it felt like.

Castiel hummed and swung his tendrils of power around. He raced past home, through the depths of stone and rock and headed west.

It was always worse going west. The very air seemed thick and harsh, cloying and rotten. Cas’s heightened senses picked up on everything, the smallest section of decay or black-hearted intent magnified to his eyes tenfold. And it was everywhere. The ground, the trees, the crops, all struggling against a dark force that lashed out at the world with sharp strokes and yet still, Cas couldn’t find the cause.

He had wandered his mind this way many days in a row and nothing became clearer. It was stronger, always, in the town closest to the mountain – Dean’s town, Dean’s home. Something was wrong there, sickly, broken. It oozed into all life and the tendrils of it were strong.

Cas lingered there, his powers pulsing with his heartbeat and he was just about to draw his consciousness away when he heard a small sob.

It happened again, a plea, a cry for help. Cas whirled his grace together and then scattered away in a rush. He’d never heard someone calling out like this before and he was compelled to find the source.

_Help, please, help_

A child’s voice he thought, a voice but not a voice. A prayer? A wish whispered on the wind. But why, why could he hear it? He’d never heard people’s thoughts before.

When he found it, he zeroed in on the source and lingered outside the home while he listened.

He understood quickly who this was and why he could hear it. A young girl, not more than twelve years old, blonde hair, fierce eyes and heart as strong and bold as any Cas had seen. Claire.

She’d been brought to him a year past, walking tall and proud, accused of stealing and fighting. A corrupting influence on her peers, they said. Cas had seen in her a deep hurt, and a deeper caring. She’d stolen to feed her sick mother, and fought to protect herself and her friends. She may have done wrong, but she wasn’t evil or cruel and Cas had flinched away at the idea that these men would send her to an unknown fate just to be rid of her troublesome ways.

He had refused, of course, he had sent her back and shown his anger to the men surrounding her for daring to bring one so young and in need. They grovelled, begging forgiveness, Claire smirked and Cas thought that was the end of it.

Until now.

She was sat vigil at her mother’s bedside, hands clenched around the chair and eyes fixed ahead. And she was practically yelling at the universe to save her mother. Cas understood why he could hear her now, the connection he had formed when he’d sought out her soul a year ago had somehow never been undone.

There was a link between them, a bond.

Cas was startled by the idea that this had happened. That perhaps it had always happened and he’d been too blind, or to incapable, to see it. That staring into someone’s soul left a mark and a spark that he couldn’t undo.

He sucked his essence away from the girl, the street, the town and let it rush over the earth until he was in one piece again, sat waiting cross legged in the valley of the mountain.

He paced back and forth for what felt like a long time, weighing options, considering ideas and then throwing them away.

He could help, he could go in there and _help_. Claire had cried out with her soul and Cas had heard and he had to do something. Didn’t he?

He should tell Sam, he should ask for advice, get a calm view of the situation. He didn’t normally intervene like this, but he’d never heard such anguished cries in his long existence. He’d never heard _any_ prayers before, and the experience had twisted open a well of emotion that Cas had barely touched upon before now.

To be begged, to be able to help and do nothing? He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

He made the decision without really making it, it made the choice to leave, to get to Claire and her mother because it didn’t really seem like a choice. Doing nothing was inaction, static, stale, and Cas had reached his limit for sitting back and surveying the world without engaging.

Castiel scribbled a quick note with charcoal and left it for a thrush he knew would fly swiftly to Sam’s house and deliver it. He'd trained the thrush well, and if the note was still there in a day’s times it would be carried straight to Sam. He couldn’t go off without telling Sam his plan, but he couldn’t wait to tell him in person either it would take too long to get him to understand.

He turned, transformed into his fastest form, and flew into the night. He was swift and sure, not a doubt in his mind that this was the right thing to do.


	5. Sam

The first few hours with Dean in his home had gone well, quiet, not exactly the enthusiastic reunion he’d always hoped but everyone was at ease. Cas was a good go between. He’d spent enough time with Dean that they spoke easily, and he steered the conversation to things they could all talk about. It was when he finally left for the night that Sam felt suddenly out of his depth.

He was the one on firm ground, in familiar territory and yet he seemed the most rattled. Dean had a steady surety about him that was so much like John that Sam kept staring, and kept half waiting for Dean to take the lead. Of course he didn’t, this was Sam’s home not his. He showed Dean to is room, and took him outside and pointed out the directions of other homes and towns, the way to the place he and John had lived while he was growing up.

Dean took it all in stride but there was a resigned slump to his shoulders.

“I know it’s all new, and it must be overwhelming–”

“I’m fine,” Dean said, fierce. Sam recoiled, confused, and then laughed at the absurdity of it. Dean smiled tiredly too. “Okay, not fine, not like I have a choice though, what’s done is done.”

“I’m sorry it played out like this. It isn’t how I wanted to meet.”

“Well, maybe if I’d known, things would be different,” Dean hummed, and took himself back inside. Sam took a deep breath before following.

“So, what do you do around here?” Dean asked.

Sam did his best not to stutter, not to umm and ahh, just to answer and not feel small around this confident man who happened to be his brother. He had a whole life, and he was allowed to feel proud of it.

“I’m a healer, sort of. I’ve learned a lot, and I keep track of new theories and I try out new herbal mixes, see if I can improve on what we know. I guess I kind of look after everyone within a day’s walk. And I help out the shopkeepers and farmers keep track of their assets, you know, watch the books and stuff.

“Huh, alright. You must have inherited Mom’s smarts,” he paused, nodding. “Looks like it suits you.”

“Thanks, I’m pretty good at it I think… I like helping people. And I like helping Cas, and the people he brings here.”

Dean nodded, but with a frown, and he tensed.

Sam felt off balance. Was he answering badly? Did Dean think he was boring, weak? That they were too different? Was it the reminder of his ordeal? There was so much to unpack between them and he wasn’t sure where to start.

“What about you? Do you, did you have a particular trade? What was your life like?”

Dean shrugged. “Nothing particular, this and that, whatever came my way.”

Sam looked at him with raised eyebrows, hoping he’d say more. He looked uneasy but continued, “You know, building work, manual labour, grunt stuff. Nothing,” he waved a hand at Sam’s books, “like this, it was just work you know, something to get paid. Nothing illegal though, just a bit of bending the rules.”

Sam nodded. Why wasn’t there more to do than nod? His head felt awkward and his hands too big.

“And do you… like it? It sounds smart, to be able to turn your hand to whatever comes your way.”

“Liking it didn’t really factor in, I needed money. I don’t have a lot of skills or schooling, I had to take what whatever work I could get. What I enjoy is everything else, good friends, good food, beer.” Dean squinted at him, “You got any of that here?”

“Friends? Yeah there’s a lot of good folks around, a few I grew up with and some who moved more recently. I can introduce you to people tomorrow.” Dean looked at him expectantly and Sam realised what he meant.

“Oh, beer, there is, I mean I don’t – there’s none in the house.” It sounded lame, like he was some kid pretending to be an adult. “We can get you some,” he finished, rubbing at the back of his head.

“Okay,” Dean sat down at the table, rocking in his chair and running his tongue over his cheek. “This is weird, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. How we’re supposed to get to know each other.” He spoke to the table top, like it was not even a question, just a thought rolling around in his mind.

“I don’t know either. Keep talking, I guess? I don’t mean to make you feel unwelcome.”

“You’re not, I’m just out of my depth a bit with...”

“Yeah it’s a lot,” Sam interjected. “Everyone’s always a little lost their first few days.”

“Beer would help,” Dean laughed.

“Sorry, I’ll buy some, I just don’t drink much myself.”

“Is there a reason? What’s the story? Come on, talk to me about something.”

So Sam did, he told Dean, haltingly about John and their life. How their father had turned to drink, using it to wash away his emotions until they were just a hazy cloud. And even when Sam was a boy he took charge of the upkeep of the house, and running errands to gain food and favours, taking care of things.

“Not that Dad was all bad,” he rushed to explain, not wanting to smear Dean’s memory of their father. “He was so guilt stricken and lost in the past.”

“I’m sorry. That’s not what I thought your life would be like. Damn, I figured you’d had it easy with Dad, like you had something I didn’t. Guess it’s all just different shades of bad.”

Sam hoped he wasn’t imagining it, but Dean seemed a little more relaxed, like maybe he wasn’t such an outsider and felt more included.

“Hmm,” Sam half laughed. “Yeah, we had our fair share of misery. Making each other miserable,” he explained.

“Really? I thought you’d have got on. Wasn’t Dad into books and making yourself a better man and all that? He was always telling stories and making sure I was listening and learning.”

“That’s half the problem! He always held me to a higher standard but he didn't make any effort to change himself.”

“Well, I thought I had dibs on being the bitter one. Doesn’t the abandoned child get to be the one with the beef?” Dean said it with a smile, but there was something else there too. A common ground maybe?

“We fought all the time as I got older, screaming at each other, making ourselves hoarse as we argued in circles over differing sides of the same coin. He was so sure his way was best, he couldn’t see that I hadn’t been doing things his way for years and we were getting along just fine. He didn’t take that well.”

Sam could smile at the memories now, with some distance between them. “Cas says we’re too similar.” He looked at Dean and wondered how long it would be before he could find some similarity between the two of them.

“I fought with Bobby – that’s the man who raised me.” Sam nodded his understanding and Dean continued, “all the time too, as a teenager, but he probably did know best. Man sure did like to rub it in your face though, gets kinda annoying after a while. I used to try and prove him wrong, doing the opposite of what he said and hoping I’d get to show off for once.”

“Did it ever work?”

“Not as often as I like,” Dean chuckled.

They talked for a long time into the still, dark hours of the night and found they were more similar than either of them expected. Sam grew more hopeful that maybe there was a chance they would find a rhythm that would work. Dad had left, off to find fortune and peace well away from him. And Dean seemed to like, to even _need_ , people around him, company and security – a shared goal and drive. Sam hoped he could be part of that for him.

 

* * *

 

 

Dean sang as he worked.

Sam went to bed too early and woke too early for Dean’s liking.

Dean was lazy when it mattered and dove head first into things when consideration would have been better.

Sam rolled his eyes when he thought Dean ate too much or spoke too loudly. Dean called him on it and told him to keep his opinions to himself.

They ate wildly differing amounts, enjoyed almost none of the same activities. It was infuriating and also kind of perfect. Sam was learning who he was compared to Dean, and how they fit and complemented each other.

 

* * *

 

 

The first couple of days they took things very slow, mostly staying home with a few small outings. People came to see Sam, to see what had happened with Cas this year and they were thrilled to hear Sam had been reunited with his brother. Dean was cordial but Sam could tell it was exhausting for him to recount the ordeal, or hear Sam tell their tale.

But they settled into a routine of sorts, and Sam was happy for Dean to tag along on his walks and in his works. Dean was good at mixing up the remedies Sam made and soon Sam felt confident leaving him to it. It was only when Sam realised Dean hadn’t made more than a cursory connection with anyone that he decided it was time to call in his secret weapon.

It was the day Dean met Charlie that Sam saw him finally seem more relaxed and at home. Charlie was great, friendly and funny. She and Dean soon had a rapport that Sam had never quite reached with her in all the years they’d known each other.

Sam was researching away and making notes, listening to them laugh. They seemed to be talking about stories, tales of heroes and adventures.

“No, no you’re so wrong. Dragons beat knights with swords every time! They can fly, how is a guy with a pointy stick going to beat that?”

“Because he’s skilled, he can think more than _”angry lizard must eat puny humans”_ , he can strategise or whatever.”

“Or whatever, you don’t even have a good argument,” she said, and Sam could hear the rolling eyes in the sound of her voice.

“Hey, it’s your argument not mine I didn’t disagree with you. You’re the one who said ‘imagine if’, I’m just playing along.”

Sam smiled, hearing them banter, hearing Dean so relaxed. Not long later Charlie appeared to pester him for paper. She was going to make Dean a map – one of her specialities, people commissioned her to draw them all the time – of the area so Dean could properly learn his way around. They talked for a long time after that, about the places she’d been to cartograph, the places she still wanted to go.

“I’ve never been anywhere, didn’t even really want to before, but now,” Dean trailed off, looking over the map she’d drawn.

“The world is big, and at your fingertips,” she said with a grin, tapping the paper he held.

Dean shrugged, but smiled and Sam wondered, _would Dean really want to leave?_

Max, local inventor, and small time witch, also hit it off with Dean and Sam was glad of that too. He’d left them alone for the afternoon, poring over Max’s latest diagrams and ideas. When he came back hours later they were still in deep conversation and gesticulating wildly.

Sam didn’t fully understand everything they were talking about – mechanisms, locks, metal work and interconnected plans weren’t something he’d taken a great interest in. Max had been trying to properly get his input for years, they both knew Sam was smart enough that he could pick it up if he tried, but Sam had more interest in folklore and medical journals than building things.

“Well,” Max said, as he slung an arm round Sam’s tall shoulders, “maybe now you’ve finally got me off your back, Dean here might be more help than your small ideas ever were.”

“Happy to give you a partner in crime, feel free to take him off my hands any time you like.” Sam said in jest.

“I might just do that, and Dean,”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll look over these and point out anything you got wrong.”

Max feigned an arrow to the chest. “Don’t be too harsh, my heart might not take it.”

They walked home and Dean seemed jovial enough, but his mind was clearly elsewhere.

“So…. Max? You got on?”

“Hmm, yeah, he’s a good guy.”

“What are you helping him with?”

“It’s this idea he has of a new cog mechanism. He’s got some good ideas, but with the way weight is often distributed when you’re moving heavy things, I think it might need some adjustments. I’m sure he’d figure it out in his own eventually, but I said I’d look it over.”

“That’s good of him to ask.”

“Real nice, I’m sure he’s just being polite, though.”

“I don’t think so, Max is a pretty open book, if he says he values your opinion I’d take him at his word. He doesn’t beat around the bush.”

“Well, you’d know better than me,” Dean shrugged.

 

* * *

 

 

Things got quiet after that and all the progress Sam thought he was making with helping Dean settle seemed to slip away a little. As much as quiet time to read, to think, to not play at pretending he knew what he was doing was a blessing, Sam did start to worry a little about Dean. He wasn’t surly, he just… wasn’t. He was blank, almost. Like he’d closed off his thoughts from the outside world and sat without expectation for anything to change. He was drinking though, beer, harder liquors. It hadn’t been many days but they’d gone through a fair amount of alcohol.

Sam didn’t want to argue with him over it, and he didn’t want to compare Dean to John when he knew it would be painful for him, but in this particular thing he couldn’t tell them apart. He decided to focus on trying to find the cause of the problem.

He sat across from Dean and grabbed the half-drunk beer from his hands, took a large swig and set it down. Dean looked at him in surprise, and a little impressed, if Sam was reading him right. Probably not impressed with his drinking abilities – one long gulp didn’t exactly make him a master at holding his liquor – but impressed at Sam’s gall to disturb his sullenness.

Sam decided preamble was off the table and went for being blunt.

“Talk.”

“About what?” Dean asked, leaning back, jaw clenching.

“Whatever it is that’s eating at you.”

“I’m fine, I just wanted some quiet.” He stood to leave and Sam stopped him by standing too.

“Let me help, whatever it is.”

“That’s just the problem, you can’t help! You can’t fix this with a few conversations and introducing me to a handful of people, and this isn’t your problem to fix anyway.”

“You’re my brother, you’re staying in my house, it’s pretty much as good as you’re going to get for problem sharing. So spill, what’s wrong? You don’t like it here? This life, my friends? Did we not make you feel welcome?”

Dean eyed him, considering, and finally shook his head. “You made me plenty welcome, like a guest or a visitor. There’s nothing not to like, but it’s not mine to take is it? I don’t belong here. I’m not like you. Okay?”

“I thought we were getting along,” Sam said, a little hurt.

“We are, that’s not...” Dean sat back down hard, chair groaning as he leaned over his knees. “I’m just not the kind of person who… this life? Sunshine, roses, whatever, it’s easy and it’s gentle and I’m not. I think too little and speak too much, I don’t fit. Maybe I only fit back home, where it’s brutal and there’s something to fight back against.”

“You looked pretty good with Max and Charlie, lighter, at ease. Isn’t that something you want?”

Dean agreed, pursing his lips. “Yeah, but want and need, what I’m capable of being happy with – they’re not necessarily the same thing. Maybe I’m not worth more than being that guy who can get the job done, no substance, no… no brains, nothing special.”

Sam’s face twitched, he half grimaced and saw clearly for the first time how small Dean seemed to think he was. Not in stature, but in importance. His family had left him as a child, and now as an adult he’d been dragged away again and told he had to make do. He’d been told that life would go on without him, and that it was for the best not to challenge that. Like new injuries on old scars, Dean was walking wounded. And maybe it didn’t hurt, but maybe he could barely let himself feel how much it hurt for fear it would overwhelm him.

Dean had a long path before him if he was going to find his way, if he was going to find peace. And Sam understood a little of that, of being stuck in a life you don’t want and didn’t choose. John had been the one to leave in the end, to travel away in search of something else but for a long time that had been Sam’s dream. He hadn’t wanted the burden of the life before him and dropping it in the dust had seemed the only thing to do.

It was a lot to explain to Dean when they’d barely begun to get to know each other, but it was worth a shot.

“Look, I know you must miss everyone you know, everything you’d loved, but that doesn’t mean you can’t find something to love here too.”

“You and Cas make it sound so simple, like it’s just picking a thread and following it and deciding it’s the best thing – the only thing – to do. What if there’s too many threads, or no threads at all? It’s not like I had a purpose before, it was fighting without a cause, but at least I was driven and needed.”

“What were you driven by?” Sam asked, curious, but also pleased at how Dean was opening up.

Dean stopped short, eyes searching the room. He half smiled, and then frowned.

“My family, I guess,” he finally said. “Keeping them safe, keeping them together, making sure we all had what we need. I know it wasn’t a real family,” he added hastily but Sam cut him off.

“It was real enough.” Because he understood too, that those you chose were the ones you felt connected to.

“You know I never wanted to stay here, not really,” Sam continued, looking nervously for Dean’s reaction.

“Cas said you’d always wanted to be here? To meet me?”

“Yes, yeah, that part – for a long time it kept me sane. That I could somehow make up for everything that had gone wrong by being here for you when, if, you needed me.”

“You don’t have anything to make up for, I can’t blame you.”

“I know, I know that. But mom’s death, it still happened because of me, because of my life. It shattered everything and without me, maybe you and Dad would have been happier. I carried that burden, still do. I felt tainted for a long time – like my life came at the cost of everyone else’s.”

“What changed?”

“I did, slowly. I wanted to get away and forge my own path, make my life worth something. Make my own mark so that what came before wasn’t all that I had. But then, Cas...” he trailed off, smiling at his own hands.

“He was why you stayed?”

“No, not really, but he did make it bearable. And before I knew it I – it’s like life opened up in front of me and I couldn’t see it happening until I looked back. But I found that helping people, the sick, needy, and the lost who find their way to Cas – it made me who I am.”

He waited for Dean to say something, anything, but he just kept looking at Sam waiting for more explanation. “I’m not saying put your happiness on hold for other people, but maybe you can find your purpose by just knuckling down and ploughing ahead, and eventually you’ll realise the thing you would have wanted found you even though you didn’t know to look for it.”

“Maybe.”

“Plus,” Sam paused, hoping he wasn’t about the say the wrong thing, “do you have anything else to do? Or anywhere you’d really want to go?”

“No,” Dean replied in a small voice.

“So, be here, be present. Maybe it’ll surprise you.”

“Suck it up and deal? Really, that’s your big piece of advice?” Dean laughed.

“Suck it up and realise that there are people who care, and we’re not going to let you get away with disappearing or settling for less. I’m here Dean, I’ll always be here. Even if you decide you don’t want to stay, that won’t change.”

The conversation seemed to settle things. Though Sam felt like they’d talked in circles and more about him than Dean. But maybe that was needed, he thought as he laid in bed, maybe Dean could see himself better through the lens of other people than he could from his own perspective. Maybe if they just kept arguing enough, they’d find things to agree on, and something better than either of them had had before.

It was a strange thought, but comforting too. Brothers argued, they challenged each other, they held each other to a higher standard. Having that now with Dean felt like slipping on a boot that had been made to fit perfectly: it still took some getting used to but you fell into a step without having to try.

His whole life he’d felt alone and a little hollow, like something was missing. Cas helped, Cas filled up the parts of his heart that were made to be filled by anothers love. But there was always something more, something of his own that didn’t feel settled, and he’d been reaching and searching and filling it with other things for years.

That part was quiet now, curled him sleeping and content – just like the man in the other room.

 

* * *

 

 

They had to talk about Cas eventually. Dean was chomping at the bit to sit down and hear Sam’s side of it, poking and prodding and trying to find out Sam’s opinion on everything. He wasn’t subtle.

“How did you and Cas, you know, get together?” he asked one day, and that at least was different conversation than talking about the sacrifices and the set up, and how it all worked and how Sam felt about it.

“It just sort of happened,” Sam said, and it wasn’t untrue.

“Can these things really just happen? People just, pop! fall in love when they haven’t been before?”

“Maybe, it wasn’t like we planned it or went on dates, he didn’t court me or anything. I was curious about him, I’d always known him, and Dad and Cas used to talk sometimes. Cas reminded Dad why he’d done what he’d done, and Dad used to talk about life back home, which he never really did with me.”

“Why didn’t he talk to you about it?”

“I think he thought it would be too upsetting, but I’m not sure whether that was for him or me. Most of what I know I learned from Cas,” Sam shrugged. “I guess Dad thought I wasn’t ready.”

“So what, you and Cas talked… and then?”

“We got comfortable with each other. Cas didn’t really open up to anyone, he hardly even spent any time with anyone. I started seeking him out, and then he started showing up and he was easy to be around.”

“I noticed that too, once I got over the whole ‘destined to kill me’ thing. He’s quiet, but it’s an easy quiet.”

“Yeah,” Sam smiled, knowing Dean had seen it too, seen something of the man he loved. “He never expected anything of me or made me feel like there were things I was supposed to do, I could just be… me, and it was enough. He realised first, that he liked me, he told me later he’d known for a long time before I finally figured it out.”

“So how does it work, I mean he’s ancient and you’re twenty three isn’t that weird?”

“I guess? It hasn’t been a problem, Cas is… well he’s not human obviously. And he’s not been around people very much, never for any length of time and never living among them like he has since he got to know me, it was all new. He grew up with me really. As I aged and changed and figured out life and my place in it, he worked it out at the same time, with me and through me. I feel like he became more of a person, and that put us on an equal footing. We’re both new to this at the same time.”

“I’m glad you’re happy,” Dean said, Sam sensed a but.

“But–”

“Don’t you worry that he’s just being complacent? It’s been hundreds of years and he’s still letting this go on.”

Sam sighed, the conversation having turned again to a thing no one had good answers for. “It’s complicated, Dean.”

“You say that, but don’t you worry you only think that because you’re too close to it? It seems more simple to me.”

“We’ve told you: it’s dangerous for Cas to make a move. There’s a lot of power at stake here if something were to go wrong.”

“Cas’s power?”

“That, and the power of a large group of people moving against him, there’d be riots, violence. Imagine if they came here, attacked Cas and then everything he stood for. All these people who came to him for safety would be in jeopardy if they were found.”

“But it’s fine to let the people I know, the place I grew up in, drive itself into the ground with every evil thing they can turn their hand to because they think it can be wiped clean at someone else’s expense?”

“Of course not, but what would you do against such an indefinable force? It’s not one thing or person to fight, it’s an idea. How do you destroy an idea? And how to you change the minds of everyone without any casualties?”

“I don’t know.”

“And neither do we, and until we do, Cas just tries to keep the scales balanced in the only way he knows how.”

“It’s not enough!”

“I know that, he knows that! No one likes it, I’ve spent countless nights consoling him over his role in all this misery and trying to help him find the will to keep doing it. He sees the worst of it you know, the worst people, and the worst situations that people run from. And he’s helpless.”

Dean looked ready to argue more, but also like he’d been shocked by his new understanding of just how much Cas cared.

“You’re here now Dean, and you can join in on all these conversations with insider knowledge and maybe help Cas get to the bottom of how things have grown so wrong. But until we have a plan, there’s not much Cas can do.”

“Are you scared that if things change you’ll lose him?”

“No, but I’m terrified that if things keep going the way they are that he’ll lose himself.”

“What do you mean?” Dean asked worriedly.

Sam was surprised at the words coming out of his own mouth as he’d never shared this fear with anyone, barely even with Cas. It was his own worst case scenario that he forced down and hid away so as not to bury everyone else in its wake.

“He’s distraught, more so every year. Half of these books are tomes about magic and curses, I’ve been scouring them for months, years! Looking for something to counterbalance the energy that thrives on this situation, or for something that Cas could use as protection himself and for all of us – for everyone in that damn shitty town too. I haven’t found anything that’s strong enough, but I see him slipping away.” He swallowed, tears pricking his eyes. “If things don’t change, I’m afraid of what he might do.”

Dean looked at him, concern written clear on his face. He screwed up his features and nodded once, as though he'd made a decision.

“Well, then we’d best keep looking.”

“Just like that you’re on board?” Sam said, surprised and confused at the sudden change in Dean’s attitude.

“What helps you, helps Cas, which helps everyone I know. Maybe this is where I can do some good.” He clapped his hands and that was that. Sam marvelled at him, hardly two weeks had passed since he was kidnapped from his life and sent to what he thought was certain death. Barely days living in Sam’s life, even less time getting to know Cas, and Dean was ready to jump with them into the unknown. Ready to fight with them for something better. It was astounding how much he could care after being hurt in so many ways.

Sam felt proud, and loved. He’d waited his whole life for Dean, feeling inadequate at doing nothing to find him, and now Dean had arrived and was throwing his lot in with them for better or worse. He’d given his life to Sam, there was nothing else that he had to give but the growing friendship and his steady presence and will to help wherever he could. But he was giving it all and it was no small thing.


	6. Sam

There was a sound of a bird twittering outside his window one evening and unusually it didn't fly away after the sun set, it stayed put as Sam's sleepy mind pulled itself into waking. Sometimes Cas sent messages via his animal companions, an _I love you_ or, _the flowers are beginning to bloom_ , or _rains are on their way_. It always made Sam smile.

When he stepped outside and collected this particular message his heart stopped in his chest. And then it beat painfully hard, crying out in fear while Sam stood there immobilised with worry.

“Sam, what's wrong?” Dean asked, there at his side and concerned.

Sam turned and gulped in the sight of him. He wasn’t alone, he had back up, someone to share with.

“It's Cas, he says he's gone to town, he must have written this last night.”

“Gone to my town?”

“Yes! There's no details, but it says he heard something he couldn't ignore and he'd explain when he comes back.”

“Okay, so when will he be back?”

“It doesn't say,” Sam paused, coming firmly to a conclusion. “I have to go to him, I have to be there when he gets back and know he's alright.”

“Won't he come to you?”

“He would probably, but what if he can't, what if something happened? I have to be there, now, so that if he doesn't come back I know it and can find out what's happened. He always said he shouldn't go there, that he wouldn't unless it was pain of death. If he's chosen to go now… I can't even imagine why he would. Something unheard must have changed his mind.”

“Well, we'll find out when he gets back.”

“And if he doesn't come back? It's dangerous, for him to be somewhere he could be found, it's the thing that stopped him from going to help.”

“How could anyone find out about him? Or about what he is? No-one knows anything!” Dean reasoned.

“But something drew him there, and it's out of character, what if other unexpected things have happened too?”

“I think you're worrying over the worst case scenarios. I'm sure we'll find him at the homestead, but if you need to see him, I'll come with you.”

Dean refused to stay behind, he had nothing better to do he said. So they packed supplies ready to set off as fast as possible for Cas's valley the next morning. Sam barely slept, but there was no point walking through the night going half speed in the dark, and exhausting themselves.

The morning broke with a weak light and an increasing worry for Sam. He'd held onto the small hope that Cas would arrive overnight and tell what happened, and it would all be over. But the world woke and Cas was nowhere to be found and Sam had an empty pit of anxiety in his stomach.

It took most of day to walk there and they moved fast, but not so fast they wore themselves out. Sam had frantic energy that he channelled into keeping the pace up but Dean's measured calm was a glad presence by his side.

There was no trace of Cas at his homestead, no sign he’d been back. Sam was ready immediately to walk on, head into the tunnels and cover as much ground as they could before exhaustion overtook them. Dean slowly managed to convince him that they may as well rest there overnight and go on the next day, that it wouldn’t cost them any more time overall. Sam agreed, begrudgingly, and as he watched Dean light a fire, find food, and cook, he marvelled at how at home Dean seemed there.

“You really fell into a comfortable routine with Cas, didn’t you?”

“I guess, we found a give and take.”

“So, you like him? You’re not afraid of him anymore?”

“Yes Sam, I like him. He’s, well you know, quiet but sincere. Pretty easy to be around.”

And Sam did know and he was glad Dean saw it too, and that he wasn’t alone in looking for Cas, or in wanting him found safely. That at least was a comfort.

 

* * *

 

 

Despite Sam setting off at almost a sprint the next morning, the thinner air and uneven path slowed them down almost immediately. Sam chivvied Dean along as best he could, and they made good time, reaching the end of the tunnel while the sun was still in the sky.

Dean made them pause for more food and to rest up for a while. Sam knew he needed it, his legs were aching fiercely after the constant walking, but he hated having to sit still. He kept glancing at the sky judging how long it had been.

Cas had been gone for almost three days now, if his note had arrived the night after he’d sent it. Sam didn’t want to wait another second. If they couldn’t find Cas in the town he would have to start a wider search and he didn’t know where to begin with that. He’d been ignoring the idea their entire journey here; Cas just had to be here, or Sam would be at a total loss at where to go next.

“Come on man, have a drink,” Dean said, offering the waterskin across.

Sam took some cleansing breaths and sated his thirst. “We should get going.”

“Get going to do what?” Dean asked, maddeningly calm.

“To find Cas!”

“Yeah, okay, but how? What’s your plan here? Go in and start knocking on doors and ask if anyone’s seen an angel?”

“Maybe!”

“Sam, you can’t do that and you know it. If people figure out who you’re looking for they’ll freak.”

Sam sighed, resigned. “He’s not an angel, anyway.”

“Semantics,” Dean said with a roll of his eyes. “Look, maybe we should wait until nightfall when we can look around without people seeing who we are.”

“I can’t wait until sunset,” Sam said quietly.

“And I can’t go in there in the daylight, if someone sees me back from the dead they’re not gonna just let that go.”

They’d reached an impasse and Sam couldn’t see a way around it except to part ways.

“So I’ll go, and see what I can find out, and then we’ll go back in together tonight–”

“No, no way! The people you grew up with, they’re nothing like what you might find in there.” Dean pointed accusingly in the direction of town. “They’re drunks, and thugs, and dishonest, violent – I mean look what they’ve been doing for years, sending people off to get slaughtered!”

“No one’s been slaughtered Dean.”

“But _they_ don’t know that, and they don’t care. They take pride in it,” Dean paused and closed his eyes briefly, Sam watched him pull away from the tirade he’d begun and refocus. “Please, it’s not safe.”

“I know that, and that’s exactly why I have to go _now_ and try and help him, try and find him. You wouldn’t sit here if it was someone you cared about.”

Dean looked affronted. “I do care, I care about Cas too Sam, but I care about you too and I don’t think he’d want you to risk your neck recklessly.”

Sam regretted his words, he knew Dean cared, but it didn’t change that he _needed_ to head out now, and Dean really believed that they should wait. They bickered about it back and forth until they had walked to the edge of the tree line, Sam leading the way. They stopped at the edge of the woods and Dean looked stricken. Sam looked around at the quiet fields and trees, and then back at Dean.

“Is this where…?”

“Yeah,” Dean swallowed. “This is where I thought I was gonna die.”

Sam bit his lip. “I know it’s awful, that you went through that, but if you hadn’t we’d have never met.”

Dean nodded, “Yeah, Sammy.” He scratched at the back of his head and smiled, but it was small and weak. “Guess we found a silver lining. Maybe in time we can find something to change all this and Cas can put an end to it, and we'll have done even more of a good thing.”

Sam took a step into the sunlight. “I have to go look for him, I’m not waiting.”

“I know that too, just… come back in one piece alright? If you find him and he’s in trouble, don’t go in there trying to fix it by yourself, we’ll help him – together.”

Sam agreed, hefted his pack of supplies up onto his shoulders and turned to march away, pushing his worries aside; he was busy now, he had a plan, he was _doing something,_ and that’s all he needed.

No one paid him any mind as he wandered through the town limits and past the gate. Dean had described as complete a layout of the town as he could on their walk through the pass, but it was different walking through it.

Sam moved slowly, trying to look like a well-worn traveller just stopping through for the night. He looked around carefully, but he didn’t really know what he was looking for.

He needn’t have worried, he found Cas without even trying.

There was a large, loud, swell of people meandering around the streets. They all seemed to be heading in the same direction and the energy in the air was palpable. Sam grew even more uneasy, watchful. It was hard blending in with a crowd being so tall but everyone around him was focused on talking animatedly with people they knew and Sam was ignored.

He followed the noise and commotion until the streets widened and converged on a wide, open space. Sam peered over the heads of the crowd and realised he was in the town square, probably the exact same one his brother had sat in while they prepared him for a sacrifice.

Suddenly the stories he'd heard, of the place he'd lived all those years ago, hit home in a way it hadn't before. The reality of this place that he'd always been connected to -- through his family and through Cas -- was in front of him. That people were really willing to chain someone up and send them away to die, and that it all started here made Sam flinch. Everyone he’d met, everyone Cas had brought to live in peace, had sat here and been terrified. It was sickening. It had been abstract and distant before, Sam only seeing the good part at the end where they were free and able to build a new life.

He cursed himself for all the times he’d told Cas that things would work out, that change would come slowly. He’d never seen this, not like Cas had, and Cas’s frustration year after year seemed like a feat of self-control now – to know what he did and not rush in to try and root out the corruption at its core must have been heartbreaking.

Sam could see why he had snapped and finally moved to _do_ something.

He walked further into the square and a shout went up, a cheer from the crowd around him. Sam, started and looked about for the source, the reason. Everyone was facing towards the top of the square, pressing closer and closer. Sam pulled himself up onto a nearby bench and looked over the heads of everyone.

His heart almost stopped in his chest at what he saw.

Cas was there, laid out on a slab of stone face down, heavy metal chains around each of his outstretched limbs and a network of crackling blue energy surrounded him.

It seemed to emanate from his centre, arching out from his back and forming a cage-like structure that hit the ground around him and formed a half sphere of bright light. The energy swirled and fizzed, pulsing and alive.

Cas wasn’t moving, wasn’t even trying to. Sam looked at the way he was restrained and thought that there probably wasn’t any give in his bonds. He had his eyes closed, as far as Sam could tell from this distance, and Sam hoped he was alive in there, hoped more than he’d ever hoped for anything before.

Desperation pounded in Sam’s chest, his heart near beating out of his ribs. As he watched, someone stepped forward, hobbling a little, and tentatively reached out with one hand towards the blinding blue streams of energy. They went rigid as their hand made contact and the blue light seemed to pulse into them.

After a moment they were pushed back by an invisible force but turned around grinning, waving triumphantly. A cheer went up again and Sam was dumbfounded over what was happening.

He shakily stepped back to the ground and tried to ignore the idea of running to Cas and trying to break him free.

An old woman sat down on the bench beside him and looked at him curiously.

“It’s an amazing thing, isn’t it?”

Sam looked at her blankly, before remembering his was supposed to be blending in. He stuttered, “I, yeah, I, it’s, I’ve been away, I can’t say I fully understand what’s this… what this is all about?”

She looked at him kindly, and lifted her hands to the sky. “It’s a miracle is what it is, and quite the welcome home for you son, let me fill you in.”

She spent the next few minutes telling him how they’d caught the menace that had plagued their town for generations, eager to tell how the mayor had caught it himself and bound it with an ancient magic. How it had been forced into submission for terrorising them, and then they’d discovered that the power it had was healing.

Her excitement grew when she started recalling the long list of people who had waited patiently in turn for the magic to heal them, her gestures becoming bigger and more animated and she told him how she hoped she could be soon and fix her trick hip that gave her trouble in bad weather.

Sam nodded, mind reeling as he thought over the implications. Cas, held immobile while his power was what, drained? Circumvented and siphoned off without his say so?

Sam wondered anxiously if it was hurting him, if he could survive it.

The woman put her hand in his arm and asked if he was okay.

“Yes, it’s wonderful,” he forced himself to say. “I should go find my brother, see if anyone we know has, err, you know,” he gestured and plastered a smile on his face.

“You do that, love, it’s a lot to take in isn’t it! No more pain, no more sacrifices, who’d have ever thought.” She seemed to be taking mostly to herself now and Sam took his cue to leave.

He pushed frantically through the crowd, away from the square, not trusting himself to get closer to Cas without doing something that could do more harm than good. Sam practically ran back through the streets, urgency and panic building within him with every step. He was going away, he was _leaving_ Cas with these people who didn’t care and it was wrong, it was all so wrong.

He only calmed down as he reached the fields and saw Dean step out of the treeline towards him. Dean, someone who knew, who understood and cared and would help him fix this.

They were a team, or at least they could be, and Dean would do everything he could to help.

Sam slowed to a stop and there was an awkward moment where he wanted to run into his arms and hold him, be held and comforted. But they didn’t really have that kind of relationship yet, so Sam settled for sinking to his knees and shaking his head.

Dean rushed to him, worry creasing his brows, and Sam reached out and grabbed his arm. He held onto Dean tight, while he recounted what he’d seen.

Dean’s face grew stony, lips thin and eyes scowling. “Bastards, I bet this is all Alistair’s doing, and if they all only knew how wrong the sacrifices were they wouldn’t be on board with this. Or at least enough of them wouldn’t be that it might make a difference.”

“Do you think there’s people in there who would help us?” Sam asked. “Even though holding Cas like that is giving them miracles?”

Dean thought for a moment before answering. “There are good people in there, I know them, I was raised by them,” he said proudly. “They might not do it happily, but if I turn back up after I’m supposed to be dead, I’m fairly sure they’d do anything I asked.”

“So what _do_ we do?”

“We get him out, or we make them pay, or both preferably in that order,” Dean said.

 

* * *

 

 

It seemed to take forever for the day to end, for the sun to set behind the mountains. Sam was aware of every second, every moment he wasn’t charging in the help the man he loved.

They’d formulated a plan over the last few hours. They would sneak in after dark, the gate wouldn’t be guarded, and Sam would head to the square to check things out and Dean would go round up some of his friends and acquaintances in case they need more pairs of hands.

Sam wasn’t jittery, a sense of calm enveloped him once the plan was in motion. But Dean was another matter, casting furtive glances behind them every few steps, stopping Sam every time he heard a new noise. It took almost a quarter of an hour just to get from the gate to the square.

Dean nodded once, expression set hard, and then ran off as planned, leaving Sam to survey the area. Sam hung back in the shadows for a long time, watching to see if anything changed. It didn’t.

There were three guards standing watch over Cas, they weren’t moving around. Two of them seemed very focused and settled, the other was either bored or nervous and looked around constantly.

Sam crept closer, keeping to the edge of the building that lined the open space. He got close enough that her could hear a low thrum of sound. It reached his ears almost as a buzz, and it was coming from the arcing lines of power growing out of Cas.

Sam suddenly didn’t feel angry anymore, sadness and fear for Cas’s safety taking hold. He couldn’t get closer without being seen so turned on his heel and walked resolutely back to the rendezvous spot.

Minutes trickled by while Sam waited for Dean to return. He watched the power emanating from Cas, glowing and sputtering in pulses. Sam had the weird detached thought that it looked a little like wings spread out from his back, surrounding him with an eerie, unearthly glow.

Maybe Cas had really been turned into a fallen angel at the hands of these rough, malicious people.

Dean finally returned with a small rabble of people. Sam tried to get a good look at them in the growing dark, but it was too hard to see and there wasn’t time for proper introductions.

“What’s the plan, boy?” said a gruff voice, and Sam smiled. If everything his father and Dean had told him served true, this was probably the infamous Bobby Singer – the man who’d raised his brother.

Sam suddenly felt lighter, they had people on hand, people who would help.

“Sam?” Dean asked. “What’s the play?”

Sam quickly and quietly told them that the guards weren’t changing, or moving, rooted to their posts.

“I just need to get close enough to Cas, to look at how he’s chained and then maybe I can free him.” He turned to his brother, “Can you cause a distraction?”

“Sure thing, Bobby, everyone, you’re with me. Ellen, stick to Sam, make sure no one bothers him?” There was a murmur of assent and then they were moving.

Dean and the others moved into the wide open space of the square, talking loudly and drawing attention. Sam and the woman Dean had called Ellen moved along the edges of the building.

One of the stationed guards shouted something, probably a call to back away, and someone shouted something back. Sam’s blood was pounding in his ears so much he was barely able to concentrate. Ellen touched his arm gently, pulling him to a stop right before the point they would have to move into the open to get to Cas.

“Best to wait, let them do their thing,” she whispered. Her hand was steady on his arm and Sam thanked her silently, nodding, for keeping him grounded.

“You can’t be here, this is off limits after nightfall!” a guard was shouting.

“Is that you Gordon? Did you pull the short straw again?”

The guard bristled, noticeable even from this distance.

“Yeah it’s me Singer, who’ve you got with you there? Dunno what you’re planning on doing out here with our little bound friend,” he gestured behind him to Cas and Sam growled a little. “But I’m not gonna let you.”

“You really think you and your men are a match for me and my boys? Just let us through and no one has to come to any harm, we just want a closer look that’s all,” Bobby replied.

“Not a chance in hell Singer, I’m not getting my ass reprimanded on account of you and this scum.”

Dean stepped forward then and Sam noted with warmth that he recognised his brother’s form and swagger even in the dark.

“Come on now man, I came back from the dead just for this, you really going to make me regret that?”

“Winchester?”

“In the flesh, you giant asshole. Now step aside.”

And then the group with Dean was surging forward and the guards rushed to meet them, they clashed with yells and shouts and Sam lurched into a run at his chance to get to Cas.

Ellen was a few steps behind him, Sam’s long legs carrying him ahead of her, but Sam didn’t care.

He came to a stop a few paces away from the energy streaming off Cas and shielded his eyes against the brightness. It was hard to see through the mesh of lines of power but Sam squinted and moved slowly closer.

Cas was breathing, thank the stars, thank the universe. It was shallow but there, Sam could see his back rising and falling. He was pressed cheek down to the stone, eyes shut and face screwed up in what looked like pain.

Sam came to a stop a hands breadth away from the blue cage around Cas and spoke to him.

“Cas, Cas come on, I’m here, please look at me.” It got no response and Sam worried at his cheek.

“Wake up! You have to wake up, tell me how to get you out, tell me what they did.” Nothing was making Cas stir and Sam wondered if he could even hear him. Sam tentatively reached between the crackling energy, stretching so he could touch Cas’s hand.

When his fingers made contact it was like free falling through a thunderstorm. Everything lurched and Sam felt a strange tug behind his navel, his thoughts spun and he braced himself as the bright power surrounding Cas seemed to surge towards him.

The power enveloped him; ice, fire and wind all at once. Sam would’ve screamed, but the energy filled his throat and cut it off before it could even begin.

 

* * *

 

 

And as suddenly as it began, it stopped, leaving Sam stood before Cas in the dark, silent night.  
Sam wavered on his feet, shocked and shaking and laughed. Cas! Cas here and whole and, wait? Where were they? Had he blacked out and woken somewhere else after Cas had been rescued? Sam moved to catch Cas up in his arms but Cas looked past him, moved past him and walked down a dark street.

Sam laughter died in his throat. “What is it? What’s happened?”

Cas ignored him and kept moving, slipping from shadow to shadow. Sam stumbled along after him, whispering urgently for Cas to notice him, to explain how they got here.

Sam looked at the sky and noticed it was cloudy, stars obscured and looking like rain. He was sure, certain beyond a doubt, that it had been a clear night moments before. He looked at Cas and his laser focus on everything around him that wasn’t Sam. Dread filled Sam’s stomach.

He didn’t seem to be there, not really not fully. And looking around, the buildings and road didn’t look quite right. Everything was warped and blurry, everything except Cas. Sam swallowed. He didn’t know what had happened, maybe he was dreaming, maybe he was dying.

A worse thought occurred to him and he worried that _Cas_ was dying, that somehow he was leaving Sam and this was where they would part ways. He had looked hurt and weak – what if his body was failing him?

No matter what he did Sam couldn’t get Cas’s attention and his only option was to follow along behind. Cas came to a stop a few houses further along, dim light shining from shuttered windows but utterly silent within.

Sam watched in trepidation as Cas eased open the unlocked door and slipped inside the house. Darkness jumped around Sam and in the blink of an eye he was standing with Cas at the bedside of a thin, frail, blonde woman. Sam took in the room, thoughts swirling, and saw a young teenager, all fierce eyed and round faced. Her arms crossed protectively across her ribs as she watched Cas lean over her mother.

Her mother? Sam wondered how he could possibly know that, but he did, and he knew the girls name was Claire. Cas was talking, a murmuring hum in his low gravelly voice but Sam couldn’t catch the words.

The world around him grew fuzzy, everything except the mother’s face. And then it clicked. As Sam looked between Cas and the sleeping face he realised that he was only seeing what Cas was seeing.

That only what Cas was focused on was available to Sam to understand.

This was Cas’s memory.

He’d asked Cas to show him what had happened to him and the power pouring out of Cas had sucked Sam into his memories.

And what was important to Cas right now was this ailing woman. No, this _dying_ woman. Cas looked anguished, pained and hurt for a moment as he talked to Claire and for a fraction of a second Sam could feel the emotion seeping out of the young girl.

He could _feel_ what Castiel was feeling. The longing, the helplessness, the frantic heartbeat that Claire was sending out in pulses into the ether, and that somehow Cas was picking up on.

“Can you really fix her?” Claire asked.

“I can, and I’m going to, right now,” Cas said, and a calmness stole over the room as Cas’s healing light filled it.

Claire’s mother woke instantly, and Claire rushed into her arms, sobbing and thanking Cas between the wails.

Cas waited with them, and Sam thought he was going to see an explanation, Cas telling them why he’d come and what he’d done but the scene melted away and Cas was by the front door again, pulling it open.

He moved to step out into the night – only, he didn’t make it.

Figures that Sam couldn’t distinguish reached out and pulled Cas from the house and threw him to the ground with a jolt that Sam felt in his bones. Cas let out a strangled yell and tried to get up but there was a smash of pottery and a lick of flames burst across his vision.

Cas screamed, rolling and writhing, as fire burned across him. It didn’t seem to be burning _into_ him but rolled in smooth glides over the surface of his skin and clothes. He tried to claw at it but his hands recoiled from the oily flickers.

Someone moved forward and cracked Cas over the head and everything went dark.

Sam blinked as another scene materialised before him.

Men were dumping a groaning, barely lucid Cas onto the stone in the square. There were grunts and jostling as they arranged him belly down and stretched his limbs to reach the chains.

It was slow work, they had to avoid touching the places the fire slithered upon Cas. It was growing dim now, burning out.

“Hurry up, before we’re out of holy oil!” a nasally voice snapped from the sidelines.

The men hurried as best they could and within minutes Cas was secured by three limbs. Sam look a halting step forward and peered at the metal they’d enclosed around Cas’s ankles and wrist – it was bright and shiny, gleaming silver, obviously new and etched with symbols Sam didn’t recognise.

The man who had spoken before stepped forward as the last of the fire burned itself out.

He gripped Cas’s last free wrist in a punishing grip and yanked on it until he was spread over the stone.

Cas lifted his head with a yelp.

“Awake now, are we?” the man asked.

“Alistair?” Cas croaked out. And Sam knew that name, the mayor, the one who orchestrated the sacrifices, the one Dean loathed. The one with a fist over this whole town, crushing it little by little.

“Good to have you with us,” Alistair crooned. “I’ve just been waiting for this day for years!”

Cas levelled him with an appraising look and Sam inched closer, even in this dream-memory he was skittish of drawing attention to himself even though he knew it wasn’t possible. Alistair’s expression was flat and cruel, and it chilled Sam.

“You can’t harm me,” Cas said, trying to lift himself up with a groan. “It would be foolish to try.”

“Ahh, but we already have, or didn’t you feel our fire?”

“A trifle, a child’s ploy, what knowledge have you of my real power?” Cas asked, a blue glow entering his eyes, crackling with energy.

“Enough to make these,” Alistair countered, twisting Cas’s wrist and jangling the last of the metal cuffs. “I do believe they should hold you, and then you power is mine to control.”

Cas faltered, barely there, barely a fraction of a second. But Sam saw it and his heart clenched. Cas was never rattled, he never looked afraid but Sam saw it there in his eyes for a beat before he focused and twisted his lips into a snarl.

The world seemed to come to a pause then and Sam realised what Cas was doing, he had contact with Alistair's skin and that was all he needed to enter the man's mind. He could read his thoughts, his very soul, if he chose to – though Sam thought there would be little need, it would clearly be as black as coal.

Cas gasped, and Sam wondered what he’d seen.

“How did you–? That should not be possible!”

Alistair swung the cuff from his index finger, back and forth, and Cas tracked it with a clenched jaw as it arched through the air like a pendulum.

“We recently discovered some old vaults, closed up by our forefathers. They held all kinds of… fascinating objects, relics, really. Some of it useless trivial things, but there were some texts, some ancient scribblings I thought might be pertinent and able to help me in my endeavours.”

Cas tried again to rise and was pulled short. He thrashed for a moment, eyes alight and jaw set. Alistair tightened his grip on Cas’s forearm and leaned in close.

“For instance: how to restrain an angel, and siphon off it’s power for my own use.”

“You don’t know what you’re dealing with. What you’re doing is dangerous!”

“Especially dangerous if you’re _you_ , I imagine. What luck would have it that you just strolled on into town. I was putting together a plan of how to take you down in my own time and yet here you come, wandering in to help a poor child’s sick mother.” He pouted, frowning in a twisted approximation of empathy. “How noble, how stupid. But good for me that I set those wards to alert me of your presence in case you ever got careless.”

“This will backfire, Alistair son of Azazel. You meddle with things you don’t understand. You could flatten this entire town.”

“Or, I could become the most powerful baron in a thousand miles. People will flock to me for help, and flee before me if they wrong me,” he bared his teeth. “And if it goes south, well, my home is warded against such magic – I’ll come out unscathed and be the only survivor of a massacre by an angel. That will at least come with some notoriety I can use to my advantage. Who cares about the rest of these filthy, mud-dwelling creatures.”

With a flourish he flattened Cas to the stone and snapped the cuff around his wrist.

The effect was instant, light blazed into existence one arc after another, forced from Cas’s back as though it had been hauled into the sky like fish on a line.

Cas screamed.

And screamed.

Thrashing, writhing and howling at the pain.

Everyone around Sam in the memory hurled themselves away from the magnetic power lines curling from Cas’s outstretched body.

But Sam’s heart was breaking at the agonised cries coming from his beloved.

He couldn’t help, it had all already passed, but he flung himself at Cas anyway, screaming his name.

At the first contact with the sparking magic he was thrown back, spiralling out until he sprawled backwards and hit with a force that knocked the air out of his lungs.

He blinked, head swimming, to find Ellen leaning over him frantically checking for injuries.

“Sam, are you hurt, what happened?”

“I’m fine, I…” Sam pushed gingerly to his feet, seeing Cas laid out across the stone shackled and hurting, still hurting after days of it. Anger swelled and Sam lurched forward, grabbing Ellen’s arm, “I know how to stop it, we just have to get the cuffs off.”

“We can’t go near that, the energy almost killed you!”

“No, it didn’t, that was just Cas, showing me what to do.”

“Are you sure, boy? If you’re wrong–”

“I’m not, I promise you, but I don’t know how much longer this will hold.”

“I know Dean said we could trust you, but how do you know this thing won’t kill us all when it wakes up?”

“That ‘thing’ is the most caring person I’ve ever known, he’d help us rather than hurt us,” Sam spoke, trying to keep his voice leve. “But if you don’t trust that, trust that there’s a lot of energy pouring out of him, and if we don’t get it to stop, it could destroy everything for miles.”

Ellen considered him, weighed him up for a few seconds, before she smiled. “Well, why didn’t you say so? Let’s get to work.”

Sam had no idea how long he’d been inside Cas’s memories, it had felt like hours but the sounds of a scuffle were still going strong behind him. Still, it was best to hurry.

He circled Cas quickly, looking past the near blinding light show of energy trying to figure out the most effective way to remove the chains. It was the cuffs that had to come off, they seemed to be the source of containing Cas’s power. He kicked himself for not thinking to grab the lock picks from Cas's supplies in the tunnel cave.

“Think you can pick these?” he asked Ellen. She pulled out a narrow dagger and a long thin rod of metal and twirled them around her fingers, smirking.

“Probably quicker than you can,” She hurried to Cas's ankles and made short work of undoing the chains around each one.

Sam watched and worried, and moved to crouch near Cas’s head. He reached a hand carefully through the bars of light, wanting desperately to grip Cas’s hand or stroke his face, but not wanting to waste time falling through his mind again.

Sam’s breath caught as he looked up and saw Dean fending off soldiers at the top of the steps.

For a few heart-stopping moments he thought he might fail Cas, pictured being dragged away by guards as Cas lay there still trapped. But then Ellen was there beside him and she rushed through unfastening the last chain, the lock clicked and the band of metal cracked open.

Ellen stepped aside, making room for Sam to be the one to ease if from his flesh and Sam peeled it away from Cas’s skin, which was red raw underneath, looking almost burnt.

Sam gently leaned forwards, ghosting his hand across Cas’s sweat soaked forehead but not daring to touch, before gently twisting the warded cuff off his wrist.

The light around Cas flickered, pulsing once, twice, before swirling inwards, sucking the air along with it. Sam held his breath, one hand fisted into Cas’s shirt, and tried to shout Cas’s name amid the rush of wind and ringing magic.

The world held its breath, one heartbeat of stillness, before bursting outwards. In a great swell it sent everyone in the square tumbling backwards, pushed down like daisies in the wind.

Sam sprawled on his ass, bruised and bewildered, air knocked out of his lungs. He looked up gasping, to see Cas standing swathed in light, glowing, throbbing with it.

“Cas!” he shouted, raspy from the lack of air.

Cas didn’t seem to hear him, eyes unfocused, frown lines deepening.

Sam rose quickly, stumbling on a hurt knee but not caring; only wanting Cas, in his arms, in his eyesight, whole again – or so he hoped.

Cas was still, too still. His chest wasn’t rising or falling and he seemed to be fighting some inward battle. Sam stood before him, hands hovering a hair's breadth from touching him and hesitated. What if he hurt Cas by jolting him? What if something was wrong, with his power after the tumultuous way it had been dragged out of him and then forced back in?

Sam heard Dean shout his name behind him and turned halfway to see that Dean was being manhandled between two armoured guards.

“If you’re gonna do something, do it now!” Dean yelled across to him, and Sam flicked his gaze sideways to see more brawling, and beyond that, more people pouring into the square.

Without time to think, he reached for Cas, one hand gripping his shoulder and the other cupping his face.

At the point of contact, skin to skin, Sam felt the universe go still around him. In the space of a second time slowed to a standstill, to where he didn’t even need to breath – caught in the space between moments.

And there was Cas, eyes lifting, finding Sam’s gaze. He was anguished and Sam gasped in shock at seeing it.

“Sam,” he said, pained and quiet.

“I’m here, it’s over, we’ve got you.”

“It’s too much, I can’t contain it,” and small tears overflowed from his eyes. Sam leaned in to brush them away, or he tried, but he couldn’t move.

“What–” he tried to twist his head to look and couldn’t, all he could move were his eyes, and then he realised he wasn’t speaking when he thought he was, there were no words leaving his lips. There were only thoughts, passed between them in a volley. They understood each other, bonded and joined by a power Sam could feel zinging beneath his skin as it bellowed off Cas in waves.

“I’m holding it,” Cas said, “as long as I can.” His eyes flicked around, taking in their surroundings. “It won’t be long enough.”

“How can I help?” Sam asked, not willing to give up, not willing to stop fighting. “We came for you, we’re going to get you out.”

“No Sam, there isn’t anything to do, it’s being ripped from me. My power, this power,” he sounded angry and afraid, “it’s going to burn a hole right here, starting from this spot and I won’t be able to stop it.”

“But, we’re here!”

“I know, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, tell me how to help you!”

“You can’t! And I wouldn’t want you to, even if you could.”

“I don’t believe that, you’ve never turned away from me before don’t do it now.” Sam willed it fiercely, forcing the love he felt through the link between them.

Cas faltered and cried out.

“Put the power into me, if it has to go somewhere,” Sam uttered urgently. “You can’t let it hurt all these people. Please, Cas.”

“They don’t deserve to be saved, Sam!”

“That’s not for you to decide.”

“Look at what they did! Look at what they always do, why shouldn’t they burn? The world might be better off for it. You’re worth more to me than them, I'd rather you weren't here to see it, to be caught in it, more than I wish it weren't going to happen.”

“There’s children here,” Sam responded distraught. “They shouldn’t have to pay for other people’s mistakes.”

The power was growing around them, twinkling around Sam’s eyeline, but all he could see was Cas.

“I’m sorry. I tried, there just isn’t a way. It’s like a dam, it’s broken and it has to go somewhere, I can’t hold it.”

“I love you,” Sam said. “Will it really end like this?”

“I have no way to pull it back.”

“Don’t give up Cas, I’m begging you – find a way to fight it. Find a way to stay with me!”

Cas struggled, emotions tangled up and concentration caught on the task of holding the power within him.

“I… I could shape it differently,” he began, falteringly. “I don’t know how effective it would be.”

“Try! What could it do?”

“Instead of burning them out, instead of hurting them, it could… burn them clean? Erase their pasts, wipe their existence into a blank space, ready to start over.”

“That’s… that’s better than death right?”

“But you,” Cas cried.

“And Dean,” Sam choked. “My brother, I only just got him back. Would we even remember each other?”

“No.”

Sam withered, spirit shaking.

“I can’t lose you both, I don’t know how.”

“My soul, my soul,” Cas said, lamenting, begging. “You have always been my soul. I would have it be that I could keep you,” he paused, and Sam felt his elation rising through the bleak web of pain woven around them.

“I could, I think I could, if i had more energy, focus it even more, it would take great strength I’m not sure I have.”

“Use my strength,” Sam urged. “Whatever it is, use mine if it means we might stay as we are.”

“I could only wipe specific memories, not blast their souls unblemished like a child’s. I could remove these events from their minds.”

“Okay?” Sam hesitated.

“Think about it, Sam. If they forget me, forget this, and forget about the need, use and ease of sacrifices, this could all be over!”

“How would that work?”

“Magic is strange, unwieldy, but I could attempt it. I could make it so their ancestral memories are different, so they believed the best way to make good in their lives was to _do_ good – not only to make up for the bad at the expense of someone else.”

“Like… making them into better people? As if they always have been?”

“Wipe the slate clean, and let them think it has always been unsullied, but leave them as they are in every other respect, yes.”

It wasn’t perfect, things very rarely were, but it was infinitely better than death, and kinder than taking away their personhood. It was the best chance they had.

“If Dean gave his strength too, and the others, would that help?” Sam questioned hurriedly. _And would they remember you so that I can keep Dean with us_ he thought to himself. But of course, his thoughts were his voice, and Cas heard all.

“Yes, I hope so,” Cas replied. “As much as your soul is mine, his is also yours. I should like to have you both stay as you are.”

Sam felt Cas begin to unlatch his consciousness, to ease away so that he could call Dean over, but Sam stopped him with a cry.

“What if...”

“I would give up my grace for you, Sam Winchester, know that. I have known you all your life, and loved you since you were old enough to look into my eyes and understand exactly what I am, and accept me for it. I will live with you until the end of your days, and if that day is today I’m sorry I brought it upon you.”

“Castiel,” Sam breathed, using his full name, drinking in the sight of him.

He remembered the day Cas spoke of. He’d been seventeen, quiet and contemplative in his youth. He’d asked everyone he knew for stories of Cas and what things they could tell about him and then walked all night to find him, and see for himself what was true. They’d talked through the small hours of the early morning, and as they lay side by side on the grass Sam had begun to fall asleep. He’d looked into the sparkling blue of Cas’s eyes and seen something that startled him.

_“They all say you’re powerful, and wonderful,” he had mused, “but… I just think you’re lonely. And maybe very tired, and very old, but there’s nothing fierce or strange about you at all.”_

Cas had been different around him after that, and Sam had grown to love him. He never knew Cas remembered that day in particular – although it had stood out for him, always.

“Cas, I can’t say goodbye to you, I don’t know how.” Sam trembled with the idea of it, the sadness of the possibility. “One life with you would never be enough, don’t leave me, I won’t let you!”

And with that, the spell broke and Sam could move. Keeping one hand on the cheek of the statue-still Castiel, he turned and bellowed for Dean.

In the time he had been in Cas’s embrace the night had turned in their favour, somehow. There was fighting and clashing down in the square but the small group who had begun the fight with Sam and Dean were standing guard around the raised dias.

“Dean,” Sam shouted again, “here, now! We need you, and the others.”

Dean was by his side in the blink of an eye, grasping at his clothes, a hand feeling around his limbs for injuries.

“What is it? What’s wrong with Cas?”

“The energy pouring out of him, he can’t hold it back, he needs our strength to direct it so no one gets hurt,” Sam hurried the explanation, there’d be time for more later– he hoped. “Join hands, now, hurry,” he begged.

Without waiting for an answer he wrapped an arm around his brothers neck, pulling him close. It was a strange semblance of an embrace, but it gave Sam skin-to-skin contact with Dean. His hand slipped below the hem of Dean’s shirt, which left both of Dean’s hands free to grasp hold of the others. In a barely a minute they had made a chain of joined limbs, each person touching, leading a trail of strength back through Sam to Cas.

“Now, Cas, we’re here,” Sam whispered, thought, hoped. Just time to wish for the best before it was happening and all he could do was hang on.

Heat grew around them first, white hot at its centre where it emanated from Cas. It seared Sam’s hand and he grit his teeth through the pain.

Shockwaves came next, buffeting the air around them in pulses, making it feel like the air was being sucked out of their lungs and pummelled back in.

Light grew, forming in swirls and eddies, driving Sam’s eyelids closed as it burned painfully bright. Raw power, bursting forth from the seams of the world, gathering into a wild and dangerous thing. Sam felt how he was suctioned to Cas, how he was pulled close and joined from his soul to Castiel’s power, he couldn’t have pulled away even if he’d wanted to.

He felt power leaching from him, a small tug at first, more as the seconds passed. Little frissions of energy drawn out of him and lighting up the world. Cas was burning up beneath him, and he cried out with guilt and fear and pain, hoping Cas would survive the onslaught.

Inside the tick of a clock, the beat of a heart, Sam felt the world turn. He felt the twist of the earth beneath his feet and the thundering of the stars overhead, caught in a breath of time.

And then bright as a sunlit day the power broke free, blasting through him, over him, until it was all he knew.

It went on for what felt like an age; it speared through him tearing at the very particles of his being.

Pure light, sharp and sweet, rolled gentle as a wave, growing ever outwards. Sam cracked open an eye and watched it roll from him and through him and away.

With a thunder clap it danced in a sudden jolt through the night, streaking across and the entire town in an instant.

Sam felt the blast radiate from Cas, from them all, and was only held upright by the magic working through him.

He rocked, shaken by the force of it, as it burned, faded, and was gone.

Panting hard, Sam was finally released from where his hand cupped Cas’s face. He squeezed the arm around Dean’s neck slightly, needing the reassurance of Dean’s solidity as he felt weak in the knees.

He half turned to look, caught Dean’s eye, but moved with a cry as he saw Cas crumple before him.

As Cas fell slumping towards the ground, Sam got his body underneath him to soften the fall. Dean was there beside him too, grabbing at the tattered remains of Cas’s clothes and helping to ease him to the ground.

Sam felt raw and desperate as he held Cas close and stroked a hand over his head. Cas was breathing, body warm and twitching under Sam's hands – but he was still and silent, lost somewhere to sleep or pain and Sam couldn't tell which. Looking about he saw that everyone in the square was flat on the ground, unconscious and unmoving.

The only people left standing were those who had joined hands with him, who had come to the rescue, Dean’s little band of stragglers.

They shuffled awkwardly, looking from one to the other and out at the fallen people around them.

“What happened?” someone whispered.

“Are they dead?” Ellen asked, voice cracking slightly.

Sam shook his head, speechless and fraught. Dean placed a heavy a hand on his shoulder, lending him strength once again.

Sam had the answers, the only answers to what had happened but the words died on his lips at the enormity of it. What if it hadn't worked? What if they were the only survivors?

He watched fearfully as the bulk of the person he knew to be Bobby Singer descended the steps and leaned in close to a fallen guard.

“Still breathin’,” he shouted back. “What in the hell did we just do?”

Sam sucked in a breath. People were alive, so it seemed their plan had worked. Time would tell, he supposed; once the town awoke that would be the test. Would they remember? Would they know Castiel’s story – their history? Would they know themselves? What exactly had they changed, and what remained?

Dean looked down on him with a grim, determined expression. “What next, Sammy?”

Sam swallowed thickly, hugging Cas closer. But he smiled up at Dean who was alert and sure above him. There were questions to answer and work to be done, injuries to be seen to and plans to make.

But for a moment Sam just sat with the heavy weight of Castiel in his arms, and the strong figure of Dean standing over him. Together, alive, and mostly whole – and like that they could face whatever came next.


	7. Epilogue

The hours after the release of magic were a long slow slog, burned into Sam memories almost moment by moment. He explained, as best he could, what Cas had been forced to do in place of the magic wreaking something worse upon the world. But without Cas to tell his side of tale Sam was met with scorn and disbelief from all but a few.

Dean was a sure presence beside him as much as he could be. Quiet but stoic in his conviction that if Sam said it, it must be true. But there were things that needed doing, especially as the townsfolk began to wake from their sleep.

He silenced the doubters on Sam’s behalf, and Sam was grateful, but it meant no one really spoke to him. They moved Cas carefully into Ellen’s nearby tavern and laid him on a low bench, where Sam spent the remainder of the night hunched beside him. His left hand was burned, not as badly as it had felt, but it still needed tending to. Mostly they were alone, apart from one or two others who kept vigil at the door.

Cas came in and out of consciousness and Sam couldn’t do much for him other than lift a cup of water to his lips, smile weakly, and hold his hand. Cas would heal in his own time and on his own terms. Human remedies did little for him and Sam knew this but it didn’t stop him from wanting to try. But Cas shook his head each time he came around enough for Sam to ask what he needed, so Sam sat quietly, and waited for his strength to return.

Slowly the town awoke, and slowly the fighters from the night before came straggling back into the tavern with news. Incredulous they sat in awe and trepidation at realising what Sam had said was true. No one but those lending strength to the magical force remembered any events leading up to that night.

They didn’t remember that Cas had been held prisoner, not who he even was. The knowledge of the giving of sacrifices, of the malicious idea that a being in the mountains was powerful and demanding of their loyalty, was just collectively _gone_

Dean came and went, Bobby most often by his side, and with the danger gone Sam dozed at Cas’s side until Dean came back and forced them both into a back room with a proper bed to sleep in.

The days after that were more of a blur. In a place where he knew no one, Sam found himself alone with his thoughts, sitting restless at Cas’s side and missing home.

Dean pulled him out of the dark of the tavern two days later, when they were sure that any danger was over. The change in the town was palpable, at least according to Dean. There was no lingering fear or barely held in hatred, people were lighter. The mayor, Alistair, had been booted out of office in the preceding days by Bobby and those he trusted, forcing Alistair and his cronies out of their positions of power.

No one had protested at that, and Ellen and a woman called Rowena had started the arduous process of figuring out what to do with a town full of people who had no clear idea of their history, but who deserved better than what had come before.

Dean was keeping out of it, and he walked Sam around town on what he described as “the grand tour” pointing out where he lived, where he’d gone to school, and then lastly, where Sam had been born and their mother and father had lived.

Sam was quiet, looking at a creaking wooden house that even Dean said he hardly remembered.

“So this is where it started,” Dean said with a gesture. “We could go knock, go inside, if you want?” he asked, looking warily at Sam.

“No,” Sam said, with a shake of his head. “Let’s just move forward.”

“Onward it is,” Dean said, and though his eyes lingered as they always did on what should have been his home, walking away was easier, and the promise of a future more tangible than ever before.

They fell into an easy rapport again, as they had in Sam’s home, but again, neither knew what the future held.

 

* * *

 

 

Cas finally fully awoke three days later, suddenly at full health and strength. He was sombre at first, quiet and withdrawn. He would barely look at Sam or Dean.

Eventually Dean pulled him out of his reverie by demanding to know what was wrong.

“I almost got you both killed because of my recklessness.”

“But you didn’t,” Dean said with finality. “We’re all still here and you saved everyone.”

“I caused the problem in the first place, my power was the danger!”

“Cas,” Sam cut in, “it’s not like you had a choice.”

“There’s always a choice,” Cas replied. “You taught me that more than anyone.”

“Your magic energy, or whatever it was, might have been the danger but it was also our saving grace,” Dean pointed out. “That event that you’ve always wanted, to change things so you’re not stuck in the same impossible situation? It happened, and it happened because of you.”

Cas considered this, eyes crinkling, as he frowned a little.

“So let's just forget it, and move on, right?” Dean asked forcefully. “No more wallowing, we’ve got work to do.”

He left them alone then, and Sam looked sheepishly at Cas lifting his shoulders in a shrug.

“He has a point,” Sam said.

“Yes, and a very final way of putting it across.”

“Can I kiss you now?” Sam asked, almost bursting with the need to touch and feel that they were both alive, well, and together.

“Only if you forgive me for being hot headed, and coming here without considering the outcomes.”

“Nothing to forgive.”

“Sam,” Cas said sternly.

“Fine, I was pissed for about five minutes, and then panicked for a day, and seeing you laid out in chains like that,” he looked away at the memory. “Just don’t ever do that again.”

“I shall do my best,” Cas joked.

“But I understand why you did it, so yes, it’s all in the past.”

 

* * *

 

 

Things felt easier after that, but more real too, now that they’d all had time to take stock of the situation. Dean was in his element, with purpose, surrounded by people he knew and loved. Sam watched him with awe, the ease with which he moved and the surety he spoke with; it wasn’t something he’d seen in Dean before.

There was an entire town to restructure and new problems to fix cropped up every day. Dean kept mostly in the background, he didn’t want to be front and centre, but he was busy doing the heavy lifting of making sure all the pieces were slotting together right and pulling people up by their bootstraps if anyone suggested deceiving people or trying to get away with something unsavoury.

“Not on my watch.” became a phrase Sam heard him mutter often.

Cas had flown back to relay the events to the folks East of the mountain once he had recovered, returning a few days later with news of a small group of people making the trek across the land to open up the first negotiations for trade routes.

It fell to Sam to go and guide them, he was hesitant to leave Dean but everything seemed under control. They could make this work if everyone put their best foot forward, and Sam had his own feet to follow.

 

* * *

 

 

Slowly the days turned into weeks and Sam found himself in the role of mediator between two groups of people who had never met and needed guidance on how to interact with each other. He had his own medical findings to pass on too, and it kept him very busy. He spent many days walking back and forth between the two settlements, helping to lug supplies through the tunnels and educate people on what they would find on the other side.

Before long it made sense for Sam to move more permanently back into his own home, there waiting and ready to be the first port of call for any travellers passing by. A place for people migrating from one side of the mountains to the other to stop for directions and instructions of where they could plan new buildings. With Max’s help he was sure they would find room and resources for anyone who wanted to live and work the land.

He was reluctant to say goodbye to Dean, not knowing when he’d see him again.

“It’s not goodbye,” Dean insisted, “it’s only a see you later.”

“Yeah,” Sam agreed, mood still low.

“And hey, we have our mutual friend to pass message quickly if we need right? There’s no need for us to be long absent from each other.”

Sam smiled, Cas might gripe about being reduced to a messenger but he was glad it gave Cas something to do and a reason to leave home.

“True, we’re not far away really.”

“And you’re not getting away, brothers means for life alright, even if we have our own lives to live and our own responsibilities. Family business comes first.”

Dean pulled him into a tight hug and squeezed until Sam thought he might pop something. Facing danger and the unknown together, and prevailing, had broken any barrier of awkwardness between them.

As Sam walked away, hiking with long strides back towards home he thought about Dean’s words. They really were a family now. Him and Cas, and Dean, and their friends. No matter the distance they were bound by gratitude, relying on each other and helping one another, but more than that just enjoying each other’s company and the comfort of people who cared.

They’d get by just fine.

 

* * *

 

 

Cas retreated back to his isolated home in a turn around Sam could barely track. He’d done well for a while, happily and quietly showing kindness and encouragement to everyone he met. He’d taken up a happy spot as a halfway house where people could stop on their journeys, a little sanctuary of homeliness, especially as winter was setting in.

But as trade had slowed down and curiosity for travelling had waned, he’d gone back to living for the most part as he always had.

Cas was learning to use his grace to pick up their thoughts and emotions when they needed him but  
even with the revelation of his expanding gift to hear prayers and pleas, and its implications, he had managed to shut himself away again.

Sam wouldn’t let it stand. He showed up one day with supplies and a plan and settled in for a few days alone, something they hadn’t done enough of lately.

Three days passed before Cas got suspicious that he may have had an ulterior motive for staying.

“Don’t you have things to be getting back to?”

“Not particularly,” Sam shrugged, “sick of me already?”

“Of course not!”

“Just checking,” Sam said with a smile. “You do like being around people though, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Cas replied, eyes turned to slits. “And I know that look, what are you planning?”

“I just want to make sure you’re happy, that’s all.”

“I am quite satisfied with the role I have in life.”

“That’s not the same thing Cas, you need to be content and fulfilled, not just resigned. And Dean agrees.”

“You’ve talked about this with him?”

“We were worried, well… I was worried and he tried to help, he’s coming tomorrow so we can all talk then.”

“Dean is coming here?” Cas said, brighter already.

“Yeah, is that alright?” Sam asked, feeling he knew the answer already.

“Of course, but why?”

“Because we’re family, and family should spend time together. A few days with nothing to do, no work or obligations, we all need that. And then...”

“And then?” Cas asked.

“Then we can see if what you really want is to stay up here alone all year long when you don’t need to, or if you wouldn’t prefer to make your home somewhere else…”

Cas shuffled around the fire, taking Sam’s hands between his own.

“With you?” he asked, low and smokey as the crackling flames.

“If you wanted, there’s no reason for you to stay here after all, and my house is big enough and–”

Cas kissed him and it was filled with promise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's that! Thank you for reading this far, I hope you've liked - dare I even hope loved? - this fic. Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated, as always!
> 
> I'd encourage you to also check out some of the other fics in this years collection of Team Free Will Big Bang fics, there's some great ones in there that everyone has worked very hard on :-).
> 
> If you want to like or reblog the art that goes along with this fic [you can find it here](http://correlia-be.tumblr.com/post/178536113665/deans-life-has-been-tough-and-fierce-and-now-it)
> 
> And you can find me on tumblr at OddSocksandStuff if you want to say hi too.


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